In Search of Pizza Perfection

If you love pizza, chances are, you already own a copy of American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza by Peter Reinhart, an incredible single subject volume that not only surveys this master baker's favourite pizzerias from Naples to New York City, but offers a wealth of recipes and useful advice for anyone keen on replicating the quintessential pizza experience at home.

My favourite dough recipe from the book is the "Neo-Neapolitan Pizza Dough", which makes a thin crust that seems to stay crisp for longer than the "Napoletana Pizza Dough", thanks to the use of high gluten or strong bread flour rather than all-purpose. The Napoletana dough, of course, is the purist's choice (see S's meticulously annotated adaptation of this recipe). Both are great (as are the other 9 or so dough recipes in the book); it just boils down to a matter of personal preference. Part of the fun is trying them all so as to figure out what best suits your taste. In terms of equipment, if you don't own a baking stone or HearthKit, Peter Reinhart's nifty trick of using an inverted large, flat-bottomed cast-iron pan as a stand-in thermal mass works very well.

The latest dough recipe I've been tinkering with comes from In Search of Perfection by Heston Blumenthal. If you're a huge fan of Family Food, you already know to expect that in order to follow one of his recipes you'll be jumping through hoops, but the results more often than not make the immense effort required worth the while. 8 classics (from roast chicken to steak) have been reinvented in the quest for perfection. Having tried his pizza dough recipe several times in the past month, I must say while it may not be everybody's idea of perfection, it sure brings you that much closer to understanding what perfection, if there is such a thing, might taste like. If you ask me, I think it tastes if not perfect - a term one hesitates to use given the stridently divergent schools of thought as to what constitutes a perfect pizza - then at least an instance of excellence. As does W, my resident pizza fascist, and just about the fussiest person I know when it comes to pizza (or anything else that counts as dinner, come to think about it).

Aside from good dough, the key to pizza greatness lies with heat - the EU pizza copyright proposal specifies an oven-surface temperature of 485°C and a cooking time of between 60 and 90 seconds! Your average domestic oven peaks at a far lower temperature (so the pizza takes longer to cook, which changes the character of the pizza, and not for the better), thus prompting Chef Blumenthal to amusingly recount the hoops he jumps through to buck his Gaggenau's top temperature, and how he manages to cut his baking time down to 90 seconds by inserting a cast iron pan (preheated over high heat for 20 minutes) into the preheated oven with the grill whacked on full, thus getting the heat above and below the pizza as hot and as even as possible. Which, of course, gives me yet another reason to lust after this top-of-the-line cooker - try as I might, my cantankerous oven peevishly refused to get sufficiently hot; my best baking time (with dutifully preheated cast iron pan in place) never got any speedier than 7 minutes.

Short of buying a new built-in oven - something I don't plan to do until we move from our tiny apartment - I would have to seek alternative recourse. Salvation came in the unassuming form of a large, round and red object - the self-contained pizza oven from G3 Ferrari. While it's unlikely to take pride of place on your countertop like say a beautiful stand mixer or dead sexy espresso machine would, it more than makes up for its utilitarian appearance with standout performance. I would go so far as to say with results this fantastic, I am prepared to relinquish any delusions I may have as to being an adherent of that overused Bauhaus mantra. This clamshell-shaped electric gadget has a built-in refractory firestone bed which not only delivers heat evenly but absorbs moisture from the dough, as well as a top heating element on the underside of the cover/lid to ensure the top of your pizza bakes at a similar rate to the crust - coordination of top and crust being critical to a pizza's success. At the highest heat setting, the temperature purportedly reaches a searing 470°C - I don't own one of those neat digital temperature guns that reads up to 500°C, and so had no way of testing this. What I do know is that once I got the hang of it, it consistently took all of 4 minutes to cook a pizza to magnificent doneness, thus shaving an impressive 3 minutes off my previous record with a conventional oven.

Back to the dough. While I can't vouch that my taste in pizza dovetails with yours, Heston Blumenthal's recipe certainly tasted like I am on the right path to pizza nirvana. The secret to its fantastic flavour is adding a proportion of pre-ferment - a small amount of dough left to ferment in the fridge for at least 12 hours - to a larger quantity of dough. The longer dough is left, the more its flavour develops. But the longer dough is left, the more the gluten relaxes and loses elasticity. The answer? Pre-ferment, prepared for flavour, mixed with dough that still possesses extensibility. Subject to the right heat conditions, the dough bakes into a light and crisp pizza crust with an airy, almost delicate interior structure, so full of creamy, bready, toasty flavour that you'll be eating that puffy, golden brown cornicione right down to the last crumb.

We're going away next week so this is my last post of 2006 - here's wishing everybody A Very Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

PS: If you reside in Singapore, the G3 Ferrari pizza oven can be found in the small but carefully edited selection of products available at the retail shop in Shermay's Cooking School. Also, the shop now carries Mario Batali's The Italian Kitchen range of tools (including this wonderfully-designed set of nesting prep bowls in funky melamine and this generously-sized dough separator/counter scraper, as pictured above).

A Bit of News & Some Gift Ideas for the Sweet-Toothed Cook

To the kind folks who take the time to visit this blog, leave a comment or email me, I am both very grateful and extremely apologetic - this past year, if I appear to be stonily silent or am tardy with my replies, please don't think I'm anything less than highly appreciative of your feedback. (Insert appropriate workload-related justification here). Add to that time management issues and a highly nervous constitution, and there you have it - my lousy excuse of an excuse.

My "day job" as a contributing editor of a luxury glossy consists primarily of coordinating fashion shoots and providing style/art direction on set/location - check out this site and a recent fashion shoot that just so happened to be cake-centric. It used to be that in between, I found time to cook and/or blog about the cooking. Recently, I also started taking dessert orders (see this gig and read The Business Times' interview here).

And even more recently, I started work on a very exciting project - I'll be teaching classes at this jewel box of a cooking school (see here, here, and here for details) from February next year. Fabulous chef-owner Shermay Lee, whom many may also know as the author of The New Mrs Lee's Cookbook: Vol.1 & Vol.2 - definitive modern classics on the art of Nonya cuisine - has taken a chance by working with someone who's entirely self-taught and has had no prior teaching experience. For this vote of confidence and leap of faith, I'm deeply thankful. I won't say more now except that the subject of this first series of classes is cupcakes (with other subjects and ideas in the pipeline) and that I'll post the full details sometime in January.

On a completely unrelated note, just in case you've yet to do your Christmas shopping, it's not only that time of the year, but it's also the time of the year when a bumper crop of spectacular new cookbooks hits the shelves. This year's dessert-related offerings are particularly sweet. Below, bite-sized reviews of a handful of my favourite recent titles for a variety of skill levels and budgets:

The Essence of Chocolate by John Scharffenberger & Robert Steinberg
This cookbook from America's premier chocolate make is a must-have addition to any self-respecting chocoholic's bookcase. Packed with useful tips and a wealth of simple-yet-stunning recipes (many of which are contributed by top pastry chefs such as Sherry Yard and Alice Medrich), it's a book I've barely had for a month but which already bears ganache stains and cocoa smudges - a good omen for potential frequency of usage. Amongst other amazing treats, check out the amusingly-named TKOs (pictured above) - a scrumptious recipe from Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery, it's a sandwich cookie that's dark chocolate without and white chocolate within, a sophisticated take on a nostalgic favourite.

Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan
I actually spent a good couple of hours deliberating whether this tome should take pride of place next to my copy of Baking with Julia in the "Homespun American Baking Classics" section of the bookcase, or in the "Fancy French Desserts" area together with titles like Desserts by Pierre Hermé, Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé and Paris Sweets, such is the comprehensive scope of this baker's bible. For anyone who simply can't get enough of Ms Greenspan's rare blend of wit and warmth, or her immaculately written recipes that hold your hand like an old friend every step of the way.

The Sweet Life: Desserts from Chanterelle by Kate Zuckerman
For a tiny taste of the sort of divine inspiration this book offers, see here. But it's not just about recipes for gorgeous, unique and dinner party-worthy desserts. Unusually enough for a "restaurant desserts" cookbook, Ms Zuckerman delves into the why, the what and the how of essential techniques in the sweet kitchen with a just-right level of detail, thus making apparently complex recipes downright accessible.

Chocolate & Vanilla by Gale Gand
Very cute. The fun, flip/cookbook format of this pint-sized number belies the flavour-packed punch of the recipes. Whether you love chocolate or adore vanilla (it's really two little books packed into one slender volume; half devoted to chocolate recipes, half devoted to vanilla recipes) - or better still, both - here's page after page of tempting treats, many of which I found can be put together in a snap even when time-pressed or tired.

Chocolate Fusion by Frédéric Bau
Coming as it does from the maestro himself - Chef Bau is the head pastry chef and director of L'Ecole de Valrhona - it's no surprise that this is no ordinary book on chocolate. In the exquisite collection of recipes, chocolate plays the starring role not merely in desserts, but also in savory cuisine, thus offering a fascinating glimpse of chocolate's endless culinary applications. Very beyond, utterly exceptional, unlike any other, one of a kind - this is the big ticket item to buy for the serious cook who already has everything (including that other Bau masterpiece, Au Coeur des Saveurs).

On yet another unrelated note...

'Tis the season of giving...Please visit Chez Pim to find out more about Menu for Hope III, the annual web-based initiative that, this year, will be raising funds for the United Nations World Food Programme. Food bloggers around the world have either donated or sourced incredible prizes that anyone from anywhere can purchase virtual raffle tickets to win. The collected money will be donated to the United Nations World Food Programme to help feed the hungry. To see the global round-up of donated prizes, please click here. Every US$10 that you donate entitles you to one chance of winning one of the prizes of your choice - please click here to visit the Menu for Hope III donation page.

A White Truffle Dinner

I don't typically get anxious about having company over for dinner. In fact, I rather enjoy it - why else do it? This past Sunday, however, was an exception. Not because of the guests, but because of the dinner to be cooked. Not because of the recipes, but because of the ingredient-of-honour. The tuber magnatum pico is not to be trifled with - mishandle it, and you might as well be watching those Euros dissipate into thin air.

How did we manage to procure them straight from Alba? Not through any ingenuity on my part, that's for sure. Lucky for us, we have friends who have friends - the former, namely, being the incredibly well-connected and resourceful Chubby Hubby & S.

While the goods only arrived a few days before Sunday, this was a meal W & I have been discussing ever since we ordered the truffles - which is to say, quite a few weeks. After much consulting of cookbooks and wringing of hands (me; W already had definite ideas about which dishes he wanted me to put on the menu), the following ensued. While a multi-course affair, we decided we would blow the truffles on a couple of dishes as opposed to stretching them across all. I think there are few things meaner, more pointless, and ironically enough, wasteful, than a few token shavings - it's imperative to use enough if you are after the full effect.

Porcini Tagliatelle with Poached Egg, Truffle Hollandaise and White Truffle Shavings
This was inspired by one of our favourite dishes from Buon Ricordo in Sydney - fettuccine al tartufovo, or fettuccine with cream and parmesan, topped with a truffle-infused egg. Instead of making plain egg pasta, I flavoured the pasta dough with dried porcini - soaked, cooked, and finely minced - which imparts a distinctive savour. The porcini pasta dough recipe comes from Giuliano Bugialli's Bugialli on Pasta.

I had stored both the eggs (for poaching as well as for making the hollandaise) and the butter (for the hollandaise) with the truffles overnight in tightly sealed jars - the aroma of truffles best clings to foods rich in fat, such as eggs and butter. This allows you to really layer and build a dish utterly permeated with the heady perfume, a foundation of flavour to support the final anointment of truffle shavings.

Pig's Trotters stuffed with Truffled Confit of Pork Neck, with Sage & Onion Polenta and Madeira Jus
No white truffles here; instead, the dish features the earthy flavours of dried porcini, truffle juice, and preserved summer truffles. I've loosely based it on a recipe from Bécasse: Inspirations and Flavours by Justin North, a beautiful book showcasing the much-lauded food from one of Sydney's most critically acclaimed restaurants. It's a dish Chef North says is inspired by the legendary Pierre Koffman.

I have a bit of a weakness for trotters. It may take a bit of effort to coax a thing of deliciousness from this oft-ignored part of the pig. But take the time to lavish it with love, treat it with the same respect you would accord a far more expensive cut, and you'll be rewarded with something so undeniably good, so unctuously satisfying, that even the unadventurous (or unsuspecting - the presentation is fairly elegant) will be asking for seconds.

Carnaroli Risotto with Shaved White Truffles from Alba
An absolute Piedmontese classic, and I think one of the best ways of showing off the white truffle's incomparable flavour. I like Thomas Keller's recipe from The French Laundry Cookbook.

It does, however, depart from traditional technique in two significant respects that would probably make a risotto purist shudder - a two-part cooking method that allows you to make the risotto "base" the day before and shortens the final cooking time to less than 10 minutes, and the last-minute beating in, the mantecatura, of - aside from the usual butter and parmesan - some heavy cream whipped to soft peak stage. This technique of folding whipped cream into risotto is one that Chef Keller attributes to Alain Ducasse - while the cream will "melt" out of its whipped form, it coats each individual grain of rice with greater ease than had it been unwhipped.

Vanilla, Brown Butter & Hazelnut Cake with Warm White Chocolate & Truffle Honey Filling; Truffle Honey Ice Cream; Apricots in Vanilla & Earl Grey Tea Caramel
When I saw the picture of Kate Zuckerman's lovely spin on financier in The Sweet Life: Desserts from Chanterelle, I knew I had to have the book. It struck me as the blonde, buttery, nutty cousin of this dark and sultry number, and is no less irresistible thanks to the ooze factor. It also struck me as a recipe ripe for playing around with - the very best kind of recipe, if you ask me - and play around I did, keeping in mind the truffle theme. Again, no white truffles here. Instead, that divine nectar known as truffle honey.

The original financier batter in the book uses ground almonds, and the filling is a vanilla custard. I used ground hazelnuts in the batter simply because the flavours of hazelnut and truffle honey are gorgeous together and I had flavoured the white chocolate ganache (which liquefies into the molten centres when the baby cakes are baked) with truffle honey. The recipe for the accompanying truffle honey ice cream (which I've written about previously) comes from Giorgio Locatelli's Made in Italy.

A Very Special Carrot Cake

W is the very antithesis to the softer, gentler, new age man. As comes as part of the whole côte de boeuf-chewing, Montecristo-chomping, and Macallan-swirling package - the very red-blooded alpha-ness of which, very frankly, doesn't bother me in the least - he's, unsurprisingly, not terribly keen on vegetables. But if you were to ask him, he'll have you know that that's a false accusation - hey, aren't mashed potatoes, french fries, and gratin dauphinois three of his favourite things?

Of all the vegetables he's not terribly keen on, the carrot is anathema. But I exaggerate.

He will do the occasional Carottes Vichy - which, of course, is more about the taste of great butter than the taste of carrots. And it amuses me to no end that he loves carrot cake. So much so, in fact, that it ranks as my most frequently used means of sneaking carrots into our diet.

I'd earmarked a pretty spectacular-looking/sounding recipe from Boulevard: The Cookbook by Nancy Oakes and Pamela Mazzola as a special treat to attempt for some time now and finally found the time and energy to give it a go. Like many of the other recipes in the book, it's a multi-component extravaganza that, if you're painfully slow like me, is probably a weekend project.

This dramatic makeover of a beloved classic from homey to haute will appeal to anyone who believes that "the simple truth is carrot cake is our favourite excuse to eat cream cheese frosting" (as Nancy Oakes puts it). Here, thin, multiple layers of cake are filled with cream cheese frosting so each and every bite boasts the perfect cake-to-frosting ratio. The cake is accompanied by scoops of candied walnut ice cream, cream cheese ice cream and carrot sherbet, and finished with a sticky drizzle of walnut caramel and strands of candied carrots.

Time-consuming? Yes. Otherwise, each individual component is not in itself difficult to make (but because the cake is so moist, the trickiest bit comes when splitting the cake layers). Worth the time and effort? Absolutely.

Macarons au sucre cuit

Since this post, I've been tinkering with quite a number of macaron recipes. While generally satisfied with the results certain trusted recipes produce, I wasn't quite happy with the consistency. In particular, recipes based on whipping egg whites (even when the whites were aged for exactly 48 hours) to a stiff foam before adding the TpT (tant pour tant, or equal parts of ground almonds and confectioners' sugar), seemed too sensitive to variables such as humidity and temperature. Using exactly the same recipe (and hence weight of aged whites) resulted in batters that were sometimes thicker or runnier than usual, and macarons that sometimes had pronounced domes and sometimes had flat, even tops. Seeing as constructing a climate-controlled workroom was not an option, I sought recourse elsewhere.

Specifically, recipes based on Italian meringue, seeing as the loose cannon appeared to be the quality of the egg whites. There are a few ways to make macarons, with the two main ones being macarons au blanc monté (the aforementioned "macarons with stiff egg whites") and macarons au sucre cuit ("macarons with cooked sugar", aka the Italian meringue method). It may seem a bit more troublesome; Italian meringue is made by cooking a sugar syrup to 118 °C (245 °F), pouring it in a thin, steady stream over stiffly whisked egg whites with the whisk attachment of your stand mixer still whirring, and beating the meringue till very firm and cool to the touch, a task that takes a good 15 minutes but that your long-suffering KitchenAid will shoulder without complaint. Based on my recent experience, macarons au sucre cuit have several advantages over macarons au blanc monté. Besides consistency from batch to batch, there's no need to bother with ageing the egg whites (a practice you may be squeamish about), and you can make up a large quantity of Italian meringue, and divvy it up for use in several consecutive lots of macarons with different flavours (as opposed to doing the same with plain whipped egg whites, an unstable substance which waits for no woman).

The recipe for macarons au sucre cuit I've been enamored with as of late comes from Grand Livre de Cuisine: Alain Ducasse's Desserts and Pastries by Alain Ducasse and Frédéric Robert, the second in the Grand Livre de Cuisine series, recently made available in English (for more about the first in the series, and my compulsive book-buying patterns, see here). Delivering what in my macaron-making to date are the most delicately delicious macarons - and just as critically, ones that are consistently so batch after batch (yes, I have a bit of a thing for consistency) - has alone justified the purchase and bookshelf realty in my head. Also, the recipe does not call for powdered egg whites, a hard-to-find ingredient often specified in macaron recipes from other professional books.

Based on Frédéric Robert's master recipe, I recently made two flavours - vanilla and almond, and toasted hazelnut. In turn, these would be part of a composed dessert of 4 different ice cream sandwiches. Pragmatically speaking, the macaron-ice cream pairing represents very efficient use of the whole egg - macarons use lots of egg whites, ice cream lots of egg yolks. But if you've ever tasted a Miss Gla'Gla from here, you'll need no convincing as to why macarons make the ideal component in an ice cream sandwich. For whatever scientific reason (I'm guessing because sugar is hygroscopic, and sugar also lowers the freezing point of water, and macarons are crazy-rich in sugar), the macarons never freeze solid even when you assemble the sandwiches way ahead of time and store them in the freezer (which is not the case if you were assembling ahead ice cream sandwiches using sugar cookies or chocolate chip cookies say). Ahead-of-time assembly not only does away with last minute stress, it also does away with the issue of rapidly melting scoops of ice cream.

Below, the flavour combinations, with a soothing palette, all creamy ivory and eggshell beige, in mind:

Vanilla Macaron; La Crème Glacée à l’Italienne
(Picture at beginning of this post) The so-called "Italian Ice Cream" comes from The Notebooks of Michel Bras: Desserts. Despite containing no eggs, this ice cream has a very creamy texture. Made with only four ingredients (milk, cream, sugar and powdered milk), a stark snow white, it's a dairy purist's dream come true. Milk powder not only heightens the natural milk flavour, but serves a structural function - it adds protein a.k.a. large molecules that hinder the formation of ice crystals. By holding crystal size in check, the final texture is thus improved. Naturally, for the best taste, buy the tastiest milk you can find (I like Horizon Organic's Whole Milk). And no, don't bother with fat-free, 1% or 2%.

Vanilla Macaron; Vanilla Ice Cream
Vanilla on vanilla, a real crowd-pleaser (who doesn't adore the flavour of real vanilla?). Classic crème anglaise-based recipe, rich in cream and even richer in egg yolks, generously flecked with vanilla seeds.

Hazelnut Macaron; Cocoa Nib Ice Cream
This Cocoa Nib Ice Cream, from Alice Medrich's Bittersweet, is a magic trick unto itself, replete with pledge, turn and the prestige. Its pale countenance, all innocuous ecru, lulls you, makes you all the more vulnerable to the first taste - clean, full flavour that's instantly identifiable as chocolate, yet not exactly chocolate, like a haunting of chocolate if you will. To think all that's behind the bittersweet deception is cream infused with cocoa nibs!

Hazelnut Macaron; Gelato al Tartufo e Miele
Divine truffle honey ice-cream, recipe from Giorgio Locatelli's Made in Italy. As for the pairing, I was inspired by this signature Truffe blanche et Noisettes macaron. Chef Locatelli's book may be big (615 pages!) and beautiful, but what sold me was the ice cream and sorbet sub-section of the dessert chapter. It's one of the few books aimed at the home cook in which the recipes do not dumb it down, resembling closely the ice cream and sorbet formulas actually used in restaurant kitchens both in terms of make-up and accuracy (every single ingredient is specified in grammes). By make-up, I mean the use of different sugars like sucrose, invert sugar, dextrose and glucose, as their different sweetening properties and different abilities to alter the freezing point ultimately affect sweetness and texture.

PS: I'll confess to being fairly sniffy about vanilla. If a recipe calls for vanilla seeds, I don't think twice about dipping into my stash of Tahitian or Madagascar Bourbon beans, which I stock up on whenever I travel or through mail order - the general quality of beans available here, even if they have winged it from Tahiti or Madagascar, makes me weep (not tears of joy). Whether it's because they were of an inferior grade to begin with, or have been ruined through improper handling and storage, I wince. Which is why, whenever I run dangerously low on the bean-count, I would much rather turn to this amazing Madagascar Bourbon pure vanilla bean paste than resort to using sub-standard beans. This Nielsen Massey godsend should be a staple in any avid baker's pantry. While there is nothing to compare with the fragrance and flavour imparted by a freshly split quality bean, still pliant and moist, this bottle of genius has many things going for it - it is dead-consistent from bottle to bottle so you know what you'll get, you can measure precisely how much you need right down to the last drop so there is never any wastage, and the flavour is so good you might even feel guilty (well, just a tad) that it's spooned right out of a jar and ridiculously convenient to use. It can be ordered from this online baker's catalogue (where you'll no doubt also be tempted by the comprehensive array of pure vanilla extracts). Or, if you reside in Singapore, make a beeline for Shermay's Cooking School (where you'll no doubt also be distracted by a plethora of other nifty kitchen essentials).

Élysée

If you've pretty much tried every recipe in Desserts by Pierre Hermé and Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé - the two most readily available books by the French pastry demi-god in English - and await with bated breath the day they decide to translate ph10, what to do in the interim? Why, go backwards (chronologically) and find a copy of La Pâtisserie de Pierre Hermé of course. While it doesn't benefit from Ms Dorie Greenspan's generosity with exhaustive detail in a recipe, what this comprehensive tome does is chart the signature creations of his pre-ph, pre-Ladurée, 11-year reign at Fauchon - fascinating stuff, especially for dessert dorks. This being back in the day, most of the desserts are very classic in presentation. Nonetheless, despite their elegant, old school garb, they feature the unexpected yet brilliant combinations of tastes and textures that have become synonymous with the pastry chef.

Ever wondered how to achieve those snazzy special effects showcased in the window displays of Paris' haute pâtisseries? All the trucs of the trade are here. For instance, to "print" a striped design on biscuit joconde (used to line the sides of the Élysée), spread a thin, even layer of pâte à cigarette (which can be tinted any colour you wish, or coloured/flavoured with cocoa in this particular instance) over a silicone mat and drag a decorating comb across the surface to trace the lines, removing excess cigarette batter from the comb between each pass. Freeze this, then spread a thin, even layer of joconde batter on top. Once baked, the design you've created with cigarette batter is embedded in the joconde sheet. The sheet is cut to size to line the inner sides of the mold intended for your cake.

When I realized how biscuit joconde imprimé is far less tricksy to do than it looks, my mind boggled with the possibilities beyond straightforward stripes - move the comb this way and that to create wavy or diagonal markings, use combs with more widely or narrowly spaced teeth, get down with a piping bag, check out funky stencils at the craft and art supplies shops, or even go all Martha, make a trip to the hardware store, and customise your own stencils armed with nothing more than acetate sheets and a trusty Stanley knife...

The Élysée comprises of layers of chocolate cake soaked in an Earl Grey tea syrup, chocolate mousse, and Earl Grey tea mousse, and is finished with a chocolate glaze. I love the way Earl Grey goes with chocolate - the bergamot really enhances the flavour, particularly if you use a chocolate with fruity notes (I used Manjari 64%).

Oriol Balaguer's Punta de Teno

I've been having a bit of a Spanish pastry moment lately. Aside from this big, beautiful book, I'm knee-deep in Oriol Balaguer's Dessert Cuisine. If Pierre Hermé is the Picasso of pastry, then Oriol Balaguer is surely the Dalí of desserts. Leafing through the pages handsomely bound by rotogravure covers and a silk-screened fabric spine is like entering an otherworldly realm, replete with surreal dreamscapes, dramatic vistas hewn not from stone and moss but butter, flour, sugar and eggs. In their forewords, both Francisco Torreblanca and Ferran Adrià (Chef Balaguer has had longstanding professional relationships with both) hail the book as an indispensable resource. After even a cursory glance, it's not hard to see why; his reformist methodology and extraordinary creativity have brilliantly bridged the traditional disconnect between shop patisserie and the restaurant dessert.

I was contributing dessert to a family lunch on Sunday. Originally, I had wanted to try one of his signature plated "dessert cuisine" spectaculars, to be finished à la minute and served immediately for optimum enjoyment of the various tastes, textures and temperatures at play. Well, the days prior flew by and I didn't quite get my act together enough for the fairly time-consuming mise en place. So I decided to choose a recipe from the cake chapter instead - in other words, something that could be virtually completed ahead of time, no eleventh hour faffing about required.

Named after Punta de Teno in Tenerife (many of the magnificent photographs in the book use volcanic rocks, sand and lava from Buena Vista del Norte as props), I found the presentation of this cake simply irresistible, as if sculpted by wind and wave into an organic form. More importantly, it boasted one of my favourite flavour combinations - chocolate and lemon.

First, make the chocolate bonbon cream flavoured with milk chocolate and hazelnut praline - this is layered with discs of light cocoa sponge cake soaked in an Earl Grey tea and lemon syrup and frozen in molds to form the centers of the individual cakes (or you can make one large cake instead). Next, make the lemon mousse with lemon juice, sugar, lemon zest, Italian meringue, gelatin and half-whipped cream. To assemble, spoon the lemon mousse into hemispherical molds (of a slightly greater diameter and depth than those used for the chocolate bonbon centers), insert the frozen and unmolded centers, fill to the top with more lemon mousse and level off the excess with an offset spatula. Once these are frozen, they're unmolded and ready for decoration - a stark white swathe of meringue applied in as abstractly chic an arc as you can muster, a dusting over the meringue with milk chocolate flakes, candied rose petals or caramelized beet flakes (I used cocoa nibs instead), and a sea glass-like shard of candy and milk chocolate shaving atop each cake. The whole shebang can be held in the fridge for up to 24 hours before serving.

I must say as I was making the various components and tasting them along the way, I became convinced I must have been sloppy with my measurements and grew increasingly dubious of the potential outcome. The bonbon cream was very rich and sweet, while the lemon mousse tasted like it could do with a touch more sugar. Right up to the point of actually tasting the completed cake, I psyched myself for the prospect of pulling an overnighter and starting from scratch on some other dessert. I took one tentative taste, and another, and then some, hesitating a little between each bite to surmise if it was really tasty or just rather novel. Before I knew it, I'd scarfed it down, making it safe to presume others may take pleasure in it too. I need not have fretted; the recipe had of course been precisely engineered for balance in the final reckoning. Ever eaten a dessert that made a terrific first impression but that you grew weary of half-way through? There's the law of diminishing marginal utility in action for you. Here, the two main elements not just combine harmoniously so no one flavour predominates, but the assembled dessert is one that's deliciously different enough for eating right down to the last crumb without breaching the sated threshold.

An Awesome New Book & A Luxurious Laksa

Where would you find a scintillating blend of impeccable French culinary technique and a uniquely Asian sense and sensibility?

For many (and not just those of us lucky enough to reside in Southeast Asia), the answer lies with Justin Quek, widely acclaimed as one of the best French chefs Singapore (and Asia) has ever produced, and La Petite Cuisine, his much-beloved restaurant in Taipei.

And now, thanks to the publication of Justin Quek's Passion & Inspiration, longtime fans and the recently initiated alike can find it between the gorgeous covers of what is surely this year's most exciting and eagerly anticipated cookbook by a Southeast Asian chef. Page after page, the chef's passion and steadfast commitment to the quest for perfection shine through. The avid cook will be inspired, to say the least. The high production values will come as no surprise given as there was the culinary equivalent of a SWAT team working on the book, including author Tan Su-Lyn and media consultant Aun Koh, also known as some of the food blogosphere's finest - the husband-and-wife team behind Chubby Hubby. My praise is unstinting, and not only because I happen to be Singaporean or CH & S happen to be dear to me - that having been said, if you were in my shoes, wouldn't you be pleased as Punch too? But don't take my word for it - the book has been lauded by the supernova likes of Ferran Adrià, Charlie Trotter, Neil Perry, and Pierre Hermé, with glowing forewords written by Tetsuya Wakuda and Michel Roux Junior.

Tagliatelle with Fresh Summer Truffles and Sauteed Pork Neck Confit, Lobster Bisque Herb Souffle, Parfait of Goose Foie Gras with Black Truffle Jelly and Caramelised Filo, Tartare of Langoustines with Smoked Caviar and Vodka Cream...a mere glance at the recipes for the decidedly modern French food Chef Quek is known for will give you an inkling as to why he's put Singapore on the globe-trotting food-lover's map. But as much as I gravitated to such, the recipes which really spoke to the true blue local girl that I am were the ones with a distinctly Asian bent.

Think Crab Beehoon, braised in an aromatic broth, inspired by a street food favourite by Chef Quek's favourite hawker, Tian Jin Hai Seafood. Or Chinese Herbal Duck Consommé with Wild Mushroom and Black Truffle Tortellini, a decadent take on the delicious soup known as bak kut teh which the chef aptly describes as "a Southeast Asian pot au feu". And of course, Hainanese chicken rice - a dish virtually synonymous with Singapore - makes an outing in the elegant form of a Singapore-Style Chicken Rice Salad, vibrant with the unmistakable flavours of soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger and coriander. And it's not just hawker and street fare that have been transformed by the chef into incredibly refined dishes appropriate to a restaurant context. There're also the comforting homespun classics, such as ngoh hiang, traditionally a Teochew speciality, adopting a voluptuous aspect as Deep-Fried Duck Foie Gras Roll in Beancurd Skin.

When I saw the recipe for Lobster Laksa, I knew it would be the first recipe I had to try. I love laksa lemak, and Chef Quek's ultra luxurious version uses lobster in lieu of prawns. I didn't have the time to track down Maine lobsters, so used a combination of slipper lobster, crab and jumbo king prawns instead. By being extravagant with the choice of seafood, practising restraint with noodle portions, and taking the time to craft a rich, luscious and deeply savoury broth based on freshly pounded rempah, homemade chicken stock and just-extracted coconut milk, the simple enters the realm of the sublime. What is well worth the effort tracking down is the polygonum odoratum leaf, which is also known as hot mint or Vietnamese mint (rau răm, often part of the bouquet of fresh herbs served alongside the noodle soups and spring rolls of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos). In Singapore - where no laksa is considered complete without it - polygonum is known as daun kesom or daun laksa (the latter means "laksa leaf"). Despite what some of its monikers may suggest, polygonum bears little resemblance to mint whether in terms of looks, flavour or scent. The herb boasts a zesty and intensely peppery bite that counterbalances the fat, creamy character of the broth.

A Pair of Paco Torreblanca Desserts

When I heard the English edition of Paco Torreblanca: The Book was out, I developed what can only be described as a fixation. W very generously offered to buy me a copy, possibly in part to stem my incessant babbling about the book, the man, and his sweet works of edible art (see here for all the news) - in case anyone's wondering, I am well aware that I am an outrageously lucky girl. Since it arrived, my every waking moment has been consumed by visions of isomalt bells and the hydroscopic properties of trimoline/invert sugar (useful for everything from preventing crystallization and lowering the freezing point of ice-cream to stabilizing the emulsion-suspension that is ganache and ensuring its extraordinarily smooth texture).

If Spain is indeed the new restaurant frontier, it's also where the whole concept of dessert cuisine has really taken off. Pastry geeks need no introduction to hypermodern joints like Talaia and Espai Sucre or the celebrated It likes of Oriol Balaguer and Jordi Butrón or legends such as maestro heladero, Angelo Corvitto. But if there's one man who can be called the padre of the contemporary Spanish pastry scene, it's Francisco Torreblanca.

As it's not a book written with the domestic kitchen in mind, you'll have to do the math where quantities are concerned, as well as read between the cheffy shorthand lines when following instructions - caveats that apply with any book of such a genre. Having got that out of the way, it's a page-turning read of incandescent ideas, headily mixing vibrant re-thinks of classics with searingly original creations. It's also a heartbreakingly handsome volume thanks to the photography of Francesc Guillamet (best known for his work on the elBulli books). The search for balance, both in terms of flavour and aesthetic, informs many of the desserts. From the purity of line to the meticulous attention to detail, the creations often offer a glimpse of the chef's professed affinity for Japanese culture and sensibility. What's more, the tome is thoughtfully accompanied by a softcover book. Containing all the recipes as well as detailed construction diagrams, with laminated smear-proof pages, it's intended as a "working book" to be brought into the kitchen so you can keep the exquisite hardcover edition in pristine, un-besmirched condition - how considerate is that?

Evidently, much to W's amusement/resignation, ownership has yet to forestall my chatty cathy repetitiveness. But enough already; the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Marronier

Not that I know squat about kadō, but there's something about the linear construct of the Marronier that reminds of ikebana. A rich center of chestnut crème caramel sits between pillowy bavarois layers flavoured with chestnut, milk chocolate and rum, the whole supported by a disc of chestnut ladyfinger sponge. Once set, a dark chocolate glaze is applied. To finish, an ingot of crema de frutas de marron (chestnut cream paste), caramel-coated "stems" of chestnut and hazelnut, and a dab of gold leaf. I couldn't find sprigs of fennel blossoms to candy - the final touch - but I don't think the end result looks too shabby for it.

El Bizcocho de Calabaza

Think pumpkin seed oil, olive oil, goat cheese, pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, apricots and balsamic vinegar - Have the myriad soup or salad or other small plate/antipasti/tapas/meze possibilities taken shape in your mind's eye? Dessert certainly didn't occur to me. Yet here it is, in the guise of pumpkin seed oil and olive oil sponge cake, goat's cheese mousse, pumpkin sorbet, pumpkin seed brittle, apricot cream paste (essentially a pate de fruit), "couscous" made by sauteing cake crumbs in butter, caramelized balsamic vinegar reduction...alone, each of these preparations may seem a bit eccentric, but on the same plate, they make perfect sense. As much sense as had the featured ingredients met a savoury fate. The contrast in textures and harmony of flavours make this unexpected combination work. It's also another study in balance, with each element subtly flavoured and not excessively sweet so the final impression is of order, not dissonance.

The Never-Ending Tea Party

I am neither professionally trained, nor do I harbour any illusions as to the lot of a pastry chef. Just attempting some ambitious dessert for some ambitious dinner party is taste enough - all that blood, sweat and tears, imagine it intensified and multiplied over an intimidating scale, add an artery-popping dose of stress...I get the picture. Not that I find the process joyless - far from. What is happiness if you don't get to know pain a little better?

So imagine my reaction when Chubby Hubby and S asked if I would cater an event they were organizing on behalf of Gryphon Tea Company - I think the best way to sum it up would be to say I was as excited as I was freaked out by the prospect. Despite the fear factor, I took the plunge in the end for a very simple reason - I really like the product.

When it comes to matters of presentation, my personal inclination is towards the bold and graphic rather than the cute and precious, but keeping the Alice in Wonderland theme in mind was surprisingly easy. In fact, I'll go so far as to confess that I wholeheartedly embraced the twee and thoroughly enjoyed the excuse to revel in the girlishness of it all.

Not wanting to take any chances, I went with tried-and-tested recipes which I then tweaked to fulfil the requirements in the looks and size department. But taste and looks aside, the recipes chosen for the tea party menu would also have to meet a very pragmatic criteria - not having kitchen facilities at my disposal at the venue, all items had to be prepared ahead of time, keep well, travel well, and require the minimum of fuss in terms of last minute finishing.

The Devil's Food Cupcakes with White Chocolate & Espresso Topping, and Vanilla Cupcakes with Truffle Cream Topping are based on recipes from Michael Recchiuti & Fran Gage's Chocolate Obsession. Ultra-moist, they were also eminently suited to being up-sized or shrunk.

The recipe for Straits Chai Spice Bundt is adapted from one in Marcy Goldman's The Best of BetterBaking.com, which I've previously written about (PS: The whimsical little flags were a stroke of sheer genius on S's part.) As for the Raspberry & Chocolate Cake, the original recipe can be found in Alice Medrich's Bittersweet - cocoa-rich and laced with fresh raspberry puree (which also ensures a very soft and tender crumb), it's one of those wonderful cakes that seem to taste best when left to rest overnight. In other words, ideal for the occasion.

Notice a recurring motif? It goes without saying Linzer Cookies would feature (I like the recipe from Carole Walter's Great Cookies). The delicate, friable texture comes from the addition of sieved hard-boiled egg yolks and ground almonds, while the rich flavour is thanks to cinnamon and citrus zest. Besides the classic sandwich with raspberry jam and tiny shapes (a nifty by-product from stamping out windows for the top half of the cookie sandwiches, which I decorated with coloured sugar), I also made a few large, Christmas ornament-style numbers for dramatic effect. The fun bit comes when giving the cut-outs a stained glass effect - there are many recipes which will tell you it's as easy as crushing some hard candies to fill the cut-outs and letting the oven do the rest. What they don't usually tell you is that some candy melts beautifully, others don't - definitely a trial and error process. For fool-proof shimmering crystalline panes every time, check out the method in The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion - bring mixture of sugar and corn syrup to hard-crack stage (300 to 310 °F), colour and flavour as you wish, then use syrup to fill the cut-outs; the syrup cools and sets into candy centers.

The rest of the cookie assortment: Chocolate Shortbread, Checkerboard Cookies (both recipes adapted from Nick Malgieri's Cookies Unlimited), and Orange Vanilla Shortbread (from Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking). My favourite cookie of the bunch (the Lavishly Lemony ones, also from Carole Walter's Great Cookies) happens to be the one I didn't get a chance to take a picture of - I took these photographs after the fact, of "spares" I'd left at home. W, as it turns out, liked them as much as I did.

Catering for 20 to 25 people was made manageable as small group sessions were staggered throughout the day. What this also meant was that the never-ending tea party, mid-way through the veritable Groundhog Day, felt like the day that would never end. For sure, I'm in no rush to go call upon the decorative values of sweetheart paillettes, sweetheart nesting cutters or sweetheart molds anytime soon (and you won't catch me listening to Chris Isaak). But would I do it again? In a heartbeat. The planning, the build-up, the process, the adrenaline rush - there's nothing like it.

Peanut Nougatine & Chocolate Millefeuille; Toasted Peanut Infusion

We were privy to the most stupendously delicious pizza lunch hosted by Chubby Hubby and his fabulous wife S. Hand-crafted by S (ever met a Manolo-shod fashionista who also happens, amongst other things, to be one fine pizzaiola? here you go), each and every of the sublime pies was strewn with an insanely generous shower of summer truffle shavings. Surely, the very definition of casual luxury.

Knowing what was on the menu, I couldn't turn up empty-handed. Knowing what was on the menu, I also knew we would all be very stuffed (and very happily so) by the end of lunch. So dessert would need to be something decadent but pretty much over in two bites.

Or, as it turns out, two bites and a gulp.

Based on another Michel Bras recipe, this time from Essential Cuisine: Michel Bras. A beautiful volume, the dessert chapter is truly something else. While the recipes are written in the same crisp, succinct fashion as those of The Notebooks of Michel Bras: Desserts, the presence of dreamy photographs extravagantly sprawled across double page spreads makes the book that much more inviting to pick up and use.

If you enjoy mucking about with caramel, the nougatine layers are really fun. First make a peanut pâte sablée. This dough is rolled out, baked till golden, then crumbled and rubbed through a medium sieve - try to resist eating too much of it as it emerges from the oven, short, buttery and deliciously spiked with sea salt. Then caramelize some sugar and mix in the pâte sablée crumbs. This mixture is thinly spread between two pieces of baking parchment then reheated in the oven so it once again becomes pliable. Working quickly before it gets a chance to cool too much and stiffen, roll the nougatine between the parchment pieces to get the sheet even thinner before peeling off the topmost piece of parchment and scoring the nougatine into rectangles each measuring a mere 4 by 8 cm - a long metal or wooden ruler is very useful here.

The original recipe alternates the nougatine layers with a crème fromagère made with fromage blanc. But as I love the combination of peanuts and chocolate, and happened to have on hand chocolate crème pâtissière flavoured with Amedei's Chuao - my new favourite bittersweet chocolate - made earlier in the week for filling éclairs, I decided to use it in place of the crème fromagère.

The peanut nougatine millefeuille is accompanied by a chilled toasted peanut infusion. Rich and creamy, it's best served in shot glasses.

The flavour of the infusion really depends on the degree to which the peanuts have been toasted. So a bit of care needs to be taken when the shelled peanuts are in the oven; they need to be turned regularly to ensure even colouring. Otherwise, the infusion is really simple to make. Simply heat milk, cream and sugar together. When it comes almost to a simmer, take the pan off heat and add the toasted peanuts, then cover and let stand for at least 10 minutes before straining and chilling. For a more pronounced flavour, you could grind the toasted peanuts to a fine powder first before adding to the milk, and letting the mixture steep for longer (as long as overnight; let cool to room temperature before storing in the fridge ) before straining.

Le Biscuit de Chocolat Coulant

Molten chocolate cake, utterly ubiquitous in many a restaurant menu. And for good reason - few things are bigger crowd-pleasers and make for better pupil-dilating menu hyperbole. If you've been seduced by sexy menuspeak into eating more than your fair share of the at best moist and certainly not molten, you now probably avoid ordering it. The molten chocolate cake being essentially underbaked cake batter, you know all it takes is a split-second of inattention in the kitchen for the stuff to go from oozing to overdone.

Yet, when actually molten, I know of no other dessert as capable of making most adults as gleeful as children...there's something about that self-saucing pudding-ness that's immensely satisfying. Much as with risotto, molten chocolate cake is one recipe with which the home cook has the advantage over the harried restaurant kitchen minion. Chances are, one's not struggling to cope with a flurry of order tickets and one's attention is less likely to wander, thus ensuring an ideal mi-cuit state of runniness.

However, if you happen like me to have the attention span of a gnat, a part-baked moelleux au chocolat may not prove goof-proof. You may have to take the results-guaranteed approach. Such as that for Michel Bras' biscuit de chocolat coulant, which seekers of 3 Michelin-starred thrills will intone is the oft imitated, never bettered original, first created in 1981 and interpreted in endlessly brilliant variants since then at the legendary inn in Laguiole, Southwest France. Sure, the approach is a tad more finicky, requiring the stirring of two separate components rather than one and an extra bowl to wash up- a ganache, which you freeze into squat little cylinders, to be enveloped within a cake batter, which you pipe into the individual metal ring molds (of greater depth and diameter than the ganache cylinders) to completely surround the ganache.

Once baked (from frozen), the ganache liquefies into bittersweet nectar, dammed by a shell of soft cake with a delicately crisp crust. Once pierced with spoon, the cake languidly discharges its molten heart of darkness - interactive installation art on a plate, surely.

The recipe can be found in The Notebooks of Michel Bras: Desserts. With line-drawings and a pithy style (this ostensibly being conceived of as a "notebook") in lieu of photographs and lengthy instructions (which you'd probably expect for recipes of a fairly complex nature) it's neither desserts-for-dummies, nor does it claim to be. Nonetheless, of the recipes I've attempted, measurements are precise to the last gram and temperatures accurate, although I've on occasion had to adjust baking times - not because of erroneous instructions, but because many of the recipes specify the use of molds (with given dimensions) and the dimensions of mine differ slightly. But more importantly, the book gives a very insipiring insight into the thought processes and emotions behind Michel Bras' divine compositions, masterly orchestrations of flavours, textures and temperatures in quest of sensorial delight, replete with charming, often whimsical, presentation - sweet fuel for the reader's own flights of fancy, promising to evoke a childlike wonderment both in the means and the end.

Back to the cake. Topped with a scoop of ice-cream, you couldn't be happier. And as the snow white melts and spills unto warm ebony depths, all ooze and puddle, you can't help but fleetingly glimpse its muse - the wintry horizons of the austere Aubrac plateau. And if you ask me, lazy uncoordinated urban dweller that I am, le biscuit de chocolat coulant presents all the après-ski chalet cosiness sans the hassle of a cross-country ski trip, and much, much more fun.

Baked Chocolate Mousse with Mandarin and Anise Seed & Almond Croustillant

I've tried many times, unsuccessfully, to get a copy of Dominique & Cindy Duby's Wild Sweets - it never seemed to be available. It's finally been re-issued as a paperback edition, which I ordered faster than you can mouth "click". Has it been worth every nail-biting moment of the long wait? Having stayed up all last week way beyond my bedtime engrossed in the book, I can only say a resounding "yes".

The concise, clearly written instructions and explanations make the elaborate fantasy sweets DC Duby is acclaimed for seem accessible. For the curious cook, the approach to pâtisserie as both art and science is a deeply alluring one. As is the genius, positively symphonic use of unconventional ingredients and flavour pairings. And the attractiveness of the final composed desserts? The chapter on ''The Art of Presentation" opens with that old adage, "We eat with our eyes first." Indeed - just take a look at the full-page photographs that lavishly illustrate the volume and feel hungry. Very hungry.

While intrigued by some of the more outre creations - Red Curry Squash Flan with Gnocchi & Coconut Curry Foam, anyone? (really a postmodern pumpkin pie) - I finally settled on a twist on the classic chocolate-and-orange combination. The recipe calls for mandarins - I used unshū mikan - but good old navel oranges can be used as a substitute.

The juice flavours the baked chocolate mousse, the mandarin sorbet, as well as the citrus reduction.

If you happen to have a bit of a plated dessert fetish, this book is a profoundly inspiring source of ideas. I chose a recipe involving klutz-proof construction and assembly - pipe lines of chocolate gelée and citrus reduction, arrange segments of peeled mandarin, top with plank of baked chocolate mousse, finish with scoop of mandarin sorbet sandwiched between pair of anise seed and almond croustillants. But for the adroit and nimble of finger, there's plenty of architecturally challenging fodder (see Keiko's perfect rendition of lemon crépaze with red lentil confit and crispy apple pasta).

The croustillant recipe is an extremely useful trick to have up the sleeve. Very versatile, ring the changes by varying the combination of seeds and nuts used - it's exactly the sort of crisp, delicate and elegant cookie-like thing to serve as a chic accompaniment to any number of sorbets, ice creams and mousses.

Desserts, for me, can be classified into two categories - easy everyday stuff, and what I like to think of as weekend projects. The recipes in this book definitely fall into the latter category, involving as they do several components. But if and when you have the luxury of a long afternoon to yourself, or can steal the occasional moment over a couple of days to check off the components one at a time, it's just the thing.