White Cheese with Yogurt & Passion Fruit Cake and Almond Croissant

Finally made my very first proper cake & pastry! A very interesting lesson indeed and the class actually finished at around 6.15pm, way past the original 4.30pm time slot. The instructor had to prepare some items for us in advance due to the lack of time. Well, finally I managed to make a pretty cake unlike my previous attempts. There was this feeling of happiness in me when I see the happy faces of my family enjoying the cake :) I think I am beginning to get addicted to it...

As for the almond croissant, it was tough work trying to work on the dough...& guess what, I had to wake my hubby up in the middle of the night to apply Deep Heat for me cos of the terrible muscle ache on my arms! I know it seems exaggerating but the ache is almost like the ache you'll get after riding a bicyle at Pulau Ubin for a day (that is for those who are leading a 'sedentary' lifestyle like me). It was a good workout for me thou. But the moment you see the final product, there's this sense of satisfaction. But somehow for mine, the margarine leaked out which according to the instructor, I could have torn the dough while I did the rolling. But fortunately, they taste ok. Just that I realised that the texture is quite different from Delifrance's, it's more like the normal croissant that you get at hotels or buffets. I wonder if it's the margarine that contributes to the flakiness of the croissant. Well, here it is, the almond croissants where one of it was half eaten by...hehe me :)


I tried the recipe again on Sunday. But it didn't quite turn out well. My sponge cake didn't rise again. Which during the lesson was already prepared by the instructor. So I tried again & even went online to search for solutions...I even called up one of the teachers from Phoon Huat to find out. Gee, he was really good. Straight away he asked what sort of mixer I used. So now I know that it's the equipment that can make the difference. Using a hand mixer would require a longer beating time as compared to the better quality mixer like Kenwood.

After some guidance from the teacher & encouragement from my hubby, I tried again and yes! It finally had risen...just that it went down a little after cooling. Some mistakes I made was not putting enough gelatine which made my cake a little too soft and also adding the gelatine straight into the syrup without mixing it well first. So my fruit mirror didn't manage to 'stand firmly'. Also, I didn't realise that the cake was not set before I pour the final layer of cheese & the sponge cake actually floats up...so the layering is affected. Well, guess I still need more practice & need to adjust the timing accordingly. For baking, I suppose sometimes you will not get the result you expected despite following the recipe cos there are many factors affecting the final product such as the temperature of the oven (which differs from oven to oven), the type of mixer, the size of eggs, timing etc. No wonder there's this baking course that is titled as 'The Art and Science of Baking'.

For the recipe, you could go to Homebakers which you can find on the right panel under "Links".