Freezing morning, warm evening

Monday tends to be pastry class and today in the morning, we had to make a Gâteau Moka (a cake made out of coffee with rhum and raisins as well). It was a pretty straightforward recipe but I was quite distracted by the freezing cold temperature from walking to school in the wee hours of the morning (around 4 degrees celsius) and the temperature of the pastry room (14 degrees celsius); unfortunately, the 10 degree leap did not help one bit! I made sure I stayed near the oven as much as I could, perhaps too much.

Making the sponge cake

Ready to bake

It was literally freezing, look at the butter!

Me and my little nook in the morning...

Once the cake was out and cooled down, we cut it in 3 parts...

The best part...added the coffee cream mixture with raisins on top

And cover the cake with butter cream...

And now piping...obviously chef was the master of piping but it was good fun practicing!

Add some chocolate chips, and voila!

We finished early so we also tried out some other tricks...making roses out of paste from 70% sugar and 30% almond paste

It was a good morning overall but too cold for me, I guess I'll have to wear more layers in class, in pastry that is, and not in cuisine!!!

Tonight, however was comfortable and warm at home and a nice home cooked meal with mom! Simple, Chinese,....just what I needed!

One of the dishes we made was stuffed Doufu pok (Fried tofu) stuffed with minced pork that has been marinated in soya sauce, shaoxin rice wine, salt, cornstarch and sugar.

Before cooking...

Our family recipe is to stir fry cabbage first then when it's cooked, to add the Doufu pok on the top and let the steam cook it...But in the restaurant, you tend to find just the Doufupok with pork in noodle soup.

OBVIOUSLY it was a pork filled night (haha) and made marinated pork knuckle that has been cooked in boiling water (like a fond - stock) then set aside to cool with ricewine and salt. Simple!

Another home favorite is typical chicken soup using a baby chicken...