weekend sweet projects - fuyu custard cake

In the past week we have been watching a Taiwanese TV drama about a dessert shop. Watching all those delicious treats we decided to make some in the weekend. As fuyu persimmon is in season now we happen to have 2 at home. So fuyu dessert it is.

Talking about fuyu treats this is what we brought back from Nara, Japan. 

It’s made with dried fuyu and it’s served frozen. You can tell there’s no added sugar and it’s all natural dried fruit flavour.

Back to our fuyu custard cake. It’s a simple combination of sugar crust, custard, and poached yufu. This recipe yields 12 3.5” cakes.

Sugar crust

All purpose flour – 290g

Cake flour – 20g

Sugar – 80g

Unsalted butter – 100g

Eggs – 2 large eggs

Pinch of salt

Poached fuyu

Fuyu – 2 fuyu, thinly sliced (you need 12)

Water – 2 cups

Sugar – 1.5 cups

Cinnamon

Maple syrup Fuyu custard

Plain Greek yogurt – 500g

Corn starch – 2 tablespoon

Maple syrup – 100g

Eggs – 6 eggs

Make sugar crust first

Beat butter, sugar and salt in a mixer at medium speed until pale

Sift the flour

Add the egg and flour into the mixer until the ingredients mixed into a dough

On a surface dusted with flour, roll the dough to a disc. Slowly add in 1 tablespoon of ice water and fold the dough into a ball. Wrap with plastic wrap and rest the dough in the fridge.

Then make the poached fuyu

Put water and sugar in a saucepan and heat at high heat. Bring the solution to boil and add the cinnamon

Meanwhile cut the 2 fuyu into thin slices. Select 12 good slices and chop the leftover for the custard.  

Add the sliced fuyu and reduce to low heat. Make sure the slices fully covered by the solution

Simmer for 20 minutes. Set aside.

For the custard, simply combine all ingredients together.

Preheat oven to 350F. When the dough finished resting, roll it on a surface dusted with flour to about 1 cm thick. Cut into 3.5” diameters circles.

Put the crust at the bottom of the baking rings, pour the custard into the baking rings. Bake for 15 minutes. Then remove from oven, put the fuyu slices on to the custard. Put it back into the oven and bake for another 15 min.

The cakes can be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

fumio café tour part 1 – Taipei

One of our missions in Asia was to try out the unique cafes.  However, with limited time we could only visit a few of them.  Here are the ones we went in Taipei.

Taipei is a unique city where old and new seems to blend well together.  One example is Fongda Café (蜂大咖啡 in Ximending.  Opened since the 50s, Fongda keeps its character as an “old style” café, from its décor to the traditional Taiwanese pastries, despite the fact that it is located in the middle of a vibrant entertainment district for young people.

We went first thing in the morning for breakfast and it was already very busy.  Seeing this giant coffee syphon at their coffee bar told us they are very serious about their coffee. And indeed their coffee was really good.

Other than the traditional café, there are many “theme cafés” recently opened in Taipei.  In the Xinyi area, near the Taipei 101 there is an area renovated from old warehouses and houses.  Among those is a unique café 好丘.

It’s a café specializes in gourmet bagels (yes, bagels!).

   

Attached to it is a very neat gift shop featuring locally sourced snacks and items designed by Taiwanese artists. If you buy a postcard, you can use the stationary and stamps at a table there to put your customized message and send your memory home!

Our next stop was Yongkang Street.  Over the years it has become an area known for small artistic shops and cafés.  This one is an antique shop in a café. When we went there two local artists were doing an interview so we didn’t stay.

FabCafé is another new café with a lot of character. It is located inside the libLAB of the Huashan 1914 Creative Park.  It’s a park dedicated for various artistic functions/exhibitions, with independent stores.  The atmosphere is just a perfect match with FabCafé.

It is a concept originated in Japan, combining a “café” with “fabrication”. In the shop there’s a machine that you can bring in your own design and make your own models.  Or you can choose the designs in-store and add your personalization.  The café also holds workshops periodically to make different cool items.

But don’t forget they’re also a café, with a menu of specialty coffees and light meals. I tried their iced coffee with orange. Very refreshing for a hot summer night.

If you are visiting Taipei, make sure you leave some time to check them out ^^

(…to be continued)

June means lavender!

OK girls let's admit it.  We have a thing about lavender. At some point we must have dreamed of standing in the middle of the purple lavender field, burying ourselves in their distinct and mysterious scent.

But yet this is a dream. Only a few of us are lucky enough to visit a lavender field.
There is never a shortage of lavender flavoured pastries/drinks/dishes. However, to us there're more misses than hits. Personally we think most of the time the lavender scent is too overpowering and it gets too strong that they reminds us of air refreshener (lol). And this is the main reason that we hadn't been including lavender in our macaron menu until recently.

We bought dried lavender from a neat market in southern France. When June comes we decided to give a shot. We started testing the flavour by making lavender tea. Searching for the right tea was also a challenge because we didn’t want the aroma in the tea leaves clashing with the lavender. So we ruled out earl grey and jasmine.

We settled on Japanese sencha.        

We mixed grounded sencha and lavender with our white chocolate ganache filling. At the first bite, you will first taste the subtle aroma of sencha mixed with some floral scent. After you finish the entire macaron you can still feel the lavender aftertaste flowing in your mouth.

Just like standing in a lavender field.

Our lavender sencha macarons are now in our summer macaron menu. If you're interested email us at order@fumiotreats.com or message us on our facebook page.

Special flavour for mother’s day

Last year we launched our macarons with mother’s day special, which are combo with tea and floral flavoured macarons.  This year we’ve been scratching our heads to think of a new flavour specifically tailored for these special ladies.

So we selected red dates (紅棗) – an ingredient that has been used in Asian kitchens for centuries. From a western perspective, red dates are also considered a “superfood” -- they are antioxidant food that is abundant in many vitamins.


In Asian kitchens red dates are either cooked with porridge or soups, or the fruits are boiled in water for a while to infuse the flavour into the water.  The red date-flavoured water is added to desserts or served directly as drinks. For our macarons we made a red date puree and added to the white chocolate ganache filling. The puree has a hint of fruity sweetness and the red dates give the taste a bit like figs. To bring out the flavour we also made the ganache taste less sweet.

Making the red dates puree involves more work than other flavours. But for mom it’s always worth it right? ^^