Off with the chef whites, on with the fake eye lashes, kitten heels and my 1950s outfit. Chef Khoo no longer it was Miss Khoo who took over the Chacha in Paris for the tastiest event in town.

Monday, the 13th July 2009 I created a 3 course dinner and a Kennedy cocktail to tantalize the Parisian tastebuds. Topped off with a cupcake pimping session and some swinging sixties & fifties sounds spun by DJ Sylvania.

If you are on a picture and you want it to be removed, please send me an email.

Photography: Juan Diosdado.

Tags: 1950s, chacha, cupcake, Kennedy

On Wednesday 24th June 2009 I took over the Loft for another mouth-watering mash up. For the 5 course dinner I concocted a menu inspired by all things delicious in the garden.

T. Baas created a luscious table with his green garden illustrations and Jay-P accompanied the dinner with some toothsome tunes.

If you are on a picture and you want it to be removed, please send me an email.

Pictures are taken by Kang Leong from Londoneater.com.

Tags: jay-p, the Loft, thomas baas, underground

Where have I disappeared to? Well this kept me busy, then was the opening of this (where I’m now putting my culinary expertise to good use), I now also teach French pâtisserie classes regularly here too, plus testing loads of bagel and doughnut (spot the dougnuts in the photos I’ve been testing them out on people at every opportunity possible) recipes for a book and then the weather was briefly very summery in Paris so I fled from my computer to the park and soaked up some sunshine. Anyway I thought I’ld show some life signs (if you want to be kept up to date to the events I do join my facebook page or follow me on twitter).

One of the benefits of being a cook or as I class myself a Food creative is that you get invited to all the best parties. Plus as a girl you always get a load of marriage proposals (women+culinary skills = the magic formula for offers from the boys and the girls too!).  But as they say TANSTAAFL. Want your name to be on the guestlist? As a foodie that usually means delivering some delicious goods. So Tuesday night I began prepping some mini desserts  for 70 people that then carried on until 6pm the following day. Luckily I had the help of a lovely assistant in the afternoon. Don’t think I would have managed it all otherwise.  On the menu was:

Poached rhubarb with a rosemary panna cotta and mini candied strips of rhubarb

Mini cinammon spiced doughnuts

über chocolate cupcakies

and finally

Rose ricotta clouds with strawberries

One of my friends mentioned that the “mousse”  was like eating a cloud. I rather liked the description and have stuck with the name ever since.

When I start working on a menu I try to see whether there’s any possibility of making something which has a connection to the event. Last night so happened to be an underground take away concert (click on the link for info about the concept) by Beirut. I kind of took a quite literal sense with their name ‘Beirut’. Beirut being the capital of Lebanon. I started researching into Lebanese food. They use a lot of rosewater in their dishes, so I thought it would be great to incorporate it somehow into a dessert. French strawberries are in season so what a perfect combo. Rosewater and strawberries. I just needed something extra. I first thought of the classic whipped cream with a hint of rosewater but then ricotta came to mind. It would add that slightly “acidic/mild cream cheese” flavour giving the “cloud” just a little more depth in flavour. And that folks, is how I came up with the dessert.

All that hard work was worth the effort as I got to enjoy the once in a life time experience of seeing a band in such an intimate and unique venue.

Rose ricotta clouds with strawberries
serves 6

250g ricotta
200ml whipping cream
100g sugar
100ml rosewater

350g strawberries, chopped
20g sugar or to taste

Mix the strawberries with the sugar. Whip the cream and sugar to a stiff peak. Beat the ricotta with the rosewater and fold into the cream. Divide the strawberries into the serving glasses and spoon on the mousse. Chill for at least one hour before serving.

Über chocolate cupcakies

People kept on saying how much they loved the cupcakes at the party and I kept on saying they’re not cupcakes but brownies. By the end of the party I had given up on trying to “educate” the masses. So here are my brownie/cupcake hybrid.

I use my favourite brownie recipe minus the dlc cheesecake and then just spread a dark chocolate ganache on.

250g dark chocolate
250ml double cream

Chop up the chocolate finely. Bring the cream to a boil and then pour half over the chocolate. Let the mixture sit for one minute before stirring. Stir until well mixed together. Pour the rest of the cream over and repeat the same procedure. Leave to cool for 30minutes before icing the cakes. Sprinkles optional.

Tags: beirut, blogotheque, clouds, concert emporter, lebanese, take away concert

Reading this month’s Martha I came across a recipe for Pistachio cupcakes with raspberries which is kind of the inspiration for this recipe. Now Martha and I have a love-hate relationship. I like the styling, tips and “idea” of her recipes but her actual recipes can sometimes ‘lack’ some vital ingredients. Cupcakes with no baking powder? How’s that supposed to work? Not great coming from the biggest domestic Goddess. I thought she would have enough assistants to proof read the recipes. Anyhow I took the recipe added stuff, took stuff out, mixed around and basically came up with my own recipe. That’s how recipe writing works. Take an exisitng recipe and add your own flavour.

I was at OFF this Monday, a big food festival in Normandy checking out the new generation chefs and some heavyweights too. Take a look at Khookie for the whole story.

Raspberry & pistachio mignardise

250g ground almonds
3 eggs
120g butter, melted
120g flour
2 tsp baking powder
180g sugar
100g pistachio, chopped plus 25g for decoration
150g fresh raspberries (save a few for the decoration)
Vanilla ice cream
Raspberry coulis or 300g fresh raspberries (heat with a little water, add sugar to taste and pass through sieve).

Preheat oven to 180°c. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar and ground almonds. Beat in the eggs and melted butter. Add the pistachios and mix. Carefully fold in the raspberries. Bake for 20 minutes.
Leave cakes to cool slightly before serving (you can serve them cold too). Top with ice cream, hot raspberry coulis, fresh raspberries and chopped pistachios.

Tags: hot love, martha stewart, mignardise, OFF, Recipe writing

What do you get when you cross a beetroot, a carrot and some ginger? A BEETROTINGER! Sorry that’s quite bad but when I saw this month’s in the bag challenge I wasn’t quite sure what to make of beetroot, carrot and celery. Maybe some sort of bloody maryesque cocktail but that defeats the purpose of doing a detox…After lots of hum and ar-ring. I decided to forget the celery and replace it with some ginger which is very good for detox aswell. And to be quite honest a cake is not very detox at all. So I suggest eating some celery to balance it out Celery is actually one of the few negative calorie foods which means that it takes the body more energy to digest than what the body consumes.

Beetrotinger cake

125g finely grated carrots
125g finely grated raw beetroot
10g finely grated fresh ginger
100g brown sugar
125g ground hazelnuts
50g flour
3 tsp baking powder
100g melted butter
2 eggs

Preheat the oven 180°c. Grease a tin 15 x 15 cm. Mix flour, hazelnuts, baking powder together add the grated carrot, beetroot and ginger. Mix again and then crack the eggs and add the butter. Combine all the ingredients. Spoon into the tin and smooth out. Bake for 20-25minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Tags: beetroot and carrot cake, healthy, in the bag