About Me

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"Tout fait Maison" probably is the closest way to express how I like to live my life. I have always love making everything from scratch in my own kitchen since I was a little girl growing up in Hong Kong. Unfortunately kitchens in Hong Kong are much smaller and people do not always have the "real" oven there but only the toaster type oven. Therefore, things did not always turn out in my Hong Kong kitchen until I get my real kitchen here. To me, baking and working with dairy products are like doing science experiments. I get extremely excited when I see that my cheese is forming the way it should be or my bread is rising properly. When my end products come out perfectly, that is probably what I strive for. So I would like to share my secrets with all my friends who enjoy baking and enjoy kitchen experiments as much as I do. I have been a French trained aritsan chocolatier for the last 8 years and I still feel like there are so much to learn in the chocolate and pastry field. Having traveled the world and trained in two of the most amazing schools in France (Valrhona Chocolates and Lenotre),my goal is to spread my joy of baking to all of you.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Mount Budapest


This is sort of my own twist of the classic Mont Blanc Chocolate.  I called it Mount Budapest because I have added a tiny bit of Hungarian Paprika into the chocolates and shape it like a mountain with a little drizzle chopped pistachio on the top.  The main ingredient to this chocolate is the Petit Beurre Cookies or you can use Beurre Sale Sable cookies, any of those would work and I prefer using the Beurre Sale Sable just because it has salt in them and give it a little contrast to the sweet but you can certainly add a little bit of salt to taste.

Ingredient:

150g of Petit Beurre Biscuit crushed
100g of mix milk chocolate and dark chocolate (ratio is up to you)
2 Tbsp. of Pistachio cream (or creme de Marrons if you are more interested in Chestnut flavor)
1tsp. of butter
1 dash of Hungarian Paprika
1/4 cup of crushed Pistachio, try and find the greenest ones

  • In a medium size mixing bowl crush the biscuits

  • In another bowl, melt chocolate together with pistachio cream, paprika and butter
  • Once melted, add chocolate to the crushed biscuits and mix well
  • Line Silpat or parchment paper on a baking sheet
  • Using spoon one tablespoon of the chocolate biscuit mixture on to the baking sheet
  • Let sit til they set a bit, then using your fingers to shape each ground into a mountain shape


  • Then when they are all set and harden which usually takes a few hours

Tempered Chocolate:

250g Dark Coverture Chocolate

  • In a small bowl, melt 2/3 of the chocolates and use the rest of the 1/3 of chocolate to temper the chocolate.  When chocolate is tempered, try a little on your lip, it should be cool to the touch and the chocolates should be at around 88 degree.  Please refer to the Basic Truffle post for how to temper chocolate

Dipping the mounts:



  • Immerse the mount into the tempered chocolate and let them set on another piece of wax or parchment paper
  • After you slide them on the paper drizzle a tiny bit of the chopped pistachio on the top


  • *Variations: you can switch the chopped pistachio to anything else like shredded coconut, or crushed biscuits, crushed almonds, etc.

4 comments:

  1. This brings back such fond memories of you teaching me how to temper chocolates many years ago. Such a work of art, and yummy, too!

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    1. OMG Sandra did I teach you how to temper chocolate? You have such good memories, a bit tricky to do huh. But it works on many things tho, good technique to know. =) Thank you so much.

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  2. You're so creative...and I like how you name your chocolates with significance:) Well done...love reading your blog!!

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  3. These were gorgeous, and tasted divine. Thank you. I love that I can come to this site to see what it is that I loved about the candy. Love it!!

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