For The Love Of Baking

Bake. For the love of baking.

 
One afternoon in my kitchen, working on my buttercream roses skill.
**what is it with me and afternoons?**
 
I remember the first time I took cake decorating class. The class was taught by my baking guru, Fatmah Bahalwan, back in 2004. She instructed the class to start working on the roses, and I didn’t do so. When she inspected the class and found me doing nothing but staring at the flower nail with frowns on my rebellion face, she asked, “Riana, where is your roses?” I said, rebelliously, “No, I didn’t make any. I don’t like roses.” Since then, she acclaimed me as the baddest student she ever had. I love you, mbak Fat.
 
Until one day in the beginning of 2008, I was forced by the obligation to teach 1-day cake decorating class. I had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. I had to face my fear. Buttercream roses.
 
I‘m glad I made it in one piece, and keep my sanity. **well, okay, not all of it**
 

 
Note:
 
If you’re looking for instruction to make buttercream roses, there are several options you can choose:

• Buy our book.
• Look over here or here. Here is a lady who did it very fast! Mine were so much easier using wafer cone instead of buttercream center.
• Buy our book again.

 
We found Honeymoon Dessert by accident. Me and my junior high friends, we were strolling along Ciwalk, Bandung, looking for a comfy spot to enjoy the rest of the afternoon, after attending a wedding ceremony and reception of yet another member of the gank. We spotted the place right away as the comfiest in the row. Or maybe it’s just the warm afternoon sun.
 

 
It turned out to be a perfect choice. Even now we still crave the food and ambiance, and of course, the Bandung afternoon sky, and really look forward to get together again right in the same place. The food was beautiful. How genius that someone opened a restaurant dedicating itself to dessert and dessert only. Adding more to that, the desserts were as healthy as they can be, yet as refreshing as they get.
 

 
They served asian desserts, where coconut milk and almond milk were the milk it is! The Durian Pancake was the star. My friends ordered it twice, and still couldn’t get enough. The fruits they used were so fresh, I wonder if they just cut it right after taking orders.
 

 
We ended up ordering everything that looked good. But my heart set on Black Sesame Porridge in Almond Milk. It was wonderful, very refreshing, you felt really good after having it. It was abundant with elements that did nothing but good to your body, cleansed your system, balanced your metabolism, while maintaining energy you usually wasted on digestion. They presented the porridge in a yin-yang pattern in the bowl. Lovely.
 

 

 

 
 
Even if you are not a dessert manic acute like me, I guarantee you will love this place. They were not excessively sweet like other desserts, but just sweet enough to make you smile and not worrying about your blood sugar. Not to mention they were full of natural healthy ingredients that function as natural medicine for you. I totally can live on this.
 
Highly recommended. Must come, must taste. And I’m not their sales person.
 
 
 
 
Good friends. Lovely food. Bandung. Perfect.
 

 

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Honeymoon Dessert
Bandung: Ciwalk
Jakarta: Taman Anggrek Mall, Kelapa Gading

 
In flat-broke time like this, I never knew how I managed to go on a vacation and had a great time on impossible budget. But I did. I sure had a blast, God forgive me.
 
Poppiah. Poppiah is definitely my food. Poppiah is the first food I was looking for the minute I arrived and settled all my bags and belongings at the house. Off to poppiah’s stall!! Ow.. yea baby…
 
I was never good in Singlish, if not terrible. So, often times, the locals couldn’t understand my english and I couldn’t understand their Singlish. And it always took some time before we realized, hey, we could talk in Malay, duh!
 
So, when I was ordering this poppiah, my face beaming with happiness, I couldn’t help myself to chat with the seller. Yes, I was that happy. Easy to tell that it ended up with confusion on both sides.
So I was like, “oh, here we go again, the singlish curse!” But I was that high I couldn’t care less about such thing.
 
When I started taking pictures of the man in action, the lady beside him immediately waved her hands gesturing a disagreement. I apologized right away, but one picture was done.
 
I’m sorry, uncle and auntie. But I love you.
 
(more…)

 
Phewh..
 
It’s been so long since I left this kitchen empty. The classic dilemma naturally surfaced when a passion becomes a job had gotten over me and I gave in. When your hobby turns into what you do for a living, better watch out for some changes that might make you lose your freestyle touch. The “it” factor that had made you shine in the first place. That independent soaring bird inside you who might not be the same anymore. Basically you’ll lose huge amount of your time, that’s what I’ve been trying to say.
 
So.. what is up?
 

 
First of all, the donut brownie tower I posted a couple of months ago was featured by The Pastry Channel, a new foodie website to feature great desserts by Tim Fonseca, the Executive Pastry Chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston. I sure hope to see some videos by the chef soon in the future.
 

 
 
Pastry and Baking Asia Pacific magazine is now in digital format, shaping up its website to make it more enjoyable to the reader. Still, I would suggest you read the actual magazine, though. ‘Coz my article is not there
 
 
 
 

 
The annual jakarta food expo just ended a couple of weeks ago, and I had a blast. The tendency was changed from last year where mostly everything was about mass production, now almost every booth boasted more premium products in opposite to the cheaper solution that sacrifices quality. You got to taste oh so many product samples, including the wholewheat pastry produced by Corman, which immediately became my favorite. I mean, who on earth could ever think that wholewheat pastry can be that good?!
 
What else..?
 

 
In a not so fortunate event, I had a surreal opportunity to try a very very nice cafe in Kemang area, on Kemang Raya street to be precise, called Les Classiques. The ambience was Europe in late 40’s to 50’s, the cafe swept me of my feet with its homemade ‘just like mama used to make’ baked goods and… its hot chocolate! Man, you have to try this before you die. The chocolate was not coming out of chocolate powder or chocolate bar, it came from a few generous spoons of classic rich french ganache. the ganache was sitting in the bottom of a tall glass of hot milk, waiting for you to spoon it and lick it with your craving tongue. Beautiful.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Anything else..?
 
Well, I just came back home from Surabaya last week where I was lucky to have a chance to visit Arvian, a renowned baking shop where NCC classes were held for 4 days. A shop with an attitude, I fell in love in a matter of seconds. Nadrah and I were too busy browsing the pretty patterned tissue rolls we couldn’t care less to take pictures of the shop *regrets*. Aaargh, I should’ve taken at least a shot of those colorful mini baskets on the floor!!
 
Enough about me. How have you been?