Japanese-French Pastries Class II

Attended Chef Keiko Ishida's Japanese-French Pastries Class at Shermay's Cooking School. The last time I attended her class was back in Oct last year, also on Jap-French Pastries. She is really meticulous in preparation and offers many useful and interesting tips. In fact, Chef Joycelyn too! Something that I must learn to pick up as I tend to be a little clumsy and messy.

For this class, she taught 5 recipes.

• Matcha (Green Tea) Mousse
• Almond Vanilla Financier
• Almond Snow Ball
• Green Tea Souffle Swiss Roll
• Banana Caramel Swiss Roll

Almond Vanilla Financiers

Been looking forward to this class because I love Almond Financiers very much. Not sure where to get good ones in Singapore; so far only tasted Jap-made ones during my travels to Japan. So I hope I can learn this traditional french butter cake and bake it as and when I have a craving.

Almond Snow Balls

These are basically cookies shaped in balls made with ground almonds and covered with icing sugar. With such a romantic name (I always think that snow and winter is very romantic), this cookie is supposedly popular in Japan as wedding favours. I'm not a cookie person and found it a tad too sweet for my liking. Perhaps I can try to adjust the sugar content.

Matcha (Green Tea) Mousse

This cold dessert flavoured with Japanese green tea would be a good way to cleanse the palate after a meal. Complement the mellow bitter macha mousse with some sweetened red bean paste and sprinkle some edible gold leaves - what a luxe way of presenting the dessert.

Green Tea Souffle Swiss Roll

This green tea souffle sponge with whipped cream and home-made red bean paste looks and tastes perfect. Texture of the sponge is light. The combination of green tea, whipped cream and red bean is match-made in heaven!

Banana Caramel Swiss Roll

This simple swiss roll sponge is even lighter than the green tea souffle sponge! Really yummy with whipped cream, bananas and caramel cream. I'm tempted to try this recipe but rolling the sponge successfully would be a challenge. Had previously tried the Dark Sugar Swiss Roll but failed. Nevertheless, I will try.

At the end of the class, all participants brought home a box of all the pastries that were taught during class. What a treat!