Baking And Cooking Frenzy

Our baking and dancing queen (no longer calling her drama queen as she's prohibited me from calling her this moniker in my blogs, though she's still very much a drama queen 😆) is already starting to feel bored of the 4-day long SPM-so-no-school holiday.  So she started baking and cooking again. Though it's music to my ears that she's volunteered to cook lunch and dinner today and baked yummy tarts, I'm not too enthusiastic with cleaning after her aftermath.  So I let her be. Let her practise her culinary skills now.  I'm sure one day she can whomp up a storm for all of us or even build a successful food business empire in future. And I'll be the one reaping the fruits of our labour together. Once in a while, I love to build castles in the air and imagine it materializing 😇


Two days ago, out of a whim, our baking queen sauntered to the kitchen, took out all her grandma's baking apparatus and started to prep the dough from scratch.  A day earlier, she asked me to buy sugar-free dark chocolate for her bakes.  I wasn't too happy that she started baking at 3 p.m. as she's got dance class at 7:30 p.m. and knowing how a dawdler she is, I was nagging her to hurry up the entire afternoon. I knew she was not going to make it on time for her dance class and I quickly roped in Cass to help with the baking. This type of tart is pretty tedious to prepare as the tart shells have to be baked with beans atop (to prevent the tart shells from puffing up). And filling the tart shells with beans can be very time-consuming. 






When she got back from her dance class at 9 p.m., she quickly prepped the chocolate ganache with dark chocolate and cream. When she realized that there wasn't enough ganache, she used Whittaker's Almond Gold chocolate that her daddy bought (his favorite dessert). This tart is really costly!




Filling up the tart shells with chocolate ganache and salted caramel (which she made earlier for her grandparents' 49th wedding anniversary cake):


Cass also helped to poke holes on the tart shells. Can you spot what motif this is, coming from a Harry Potter devotee?


Tarts in different mould shapes:




The chocolate tarts are SO good, they taste like a million dollars!  They taste like something that you would find from some chi chi glitzy cafes. The tart shells are crispy, buttery and insanely addictive. I could just eat these plain tarts without any filling.  And the chocolate ganache are needless to say sensational, coming from Whittaker's Almond Gold; it's not sweet as no sugar is added. The only sweetness comes from the sugar from the Whittaker's Almond Gold and salted caramel.  One bite and I know that this recipe is a keeper.





Our baking queen asked if she could sell her tarts at our neighborhood Facebook group but I said no. Would you spend RM7-8 just on a chocolate tart? I know the hubs would but the majority of the people whom I know would not, unless the tarts are for some special occasions.  I told her that she could start selling her bakes after her SPM, while waiting for the results 😊