French, Chocolates and Durian?

In case you're wondering how I am going to combine the three things together, let me tell you actually I am not. It's three separate items which I made.

Madeleines, from what I understand, are French sponge-like cookies baked in a shell-shaped mould. Personally I like these little cakes as they go very well with a cup of coffee and are not too sweet. Sometimes I would just pick them up when I pass by a Delifrance cafe. I've been wanting to bake madeleines for a long time. But to be traditional, I need to use a madeleine tray. I didn't want to buy one since I would be making these only once in a while. It's quite a waste. So I jumped at the opportunity when I knew I could borrow the tray.

This madeleine recipe is shared by a KC member, Helena. Here are my madeleines, kind of cute isn't it?

I attended a class by Gina on chocolate moulding. It is pretty fun doing these chocolates. Basically we have the chocolate moulds, where we then melt some compund chocolates, pour/paint them into the moulds, pop them into the refrigerator and viola! Shaped chocolates like these:

I remembered some time ago I almost got myself a ice-cream machine as I wanted to make ice cream. Boy am I glad I didn't. Once again, my treasure chest of recipes, KC, has a few ice cream recipes which does not require an ice cream maker. I chose a recipe which did not require any eggs or cream(less sinful) and adapted it to make this Durian Ice Cream. For those who are not familiar with durian, it is a tropical fruit with a thorny outer shell. Inside there are are several 'compartments' housing the seeds covered with a creamy flesh. The thing about durians is that it has a distinctive smell, which some people find it off-putting, while others, like myself, love to bits. Here is my creamy durian ice cream, resting on a huge piece of galette wafer and of course, fresh durian.

Lastly I just want to share with you that for the Orange Blueberry Cupcakes post in my last post, I submitted the recipe to Diana's Desserts. For those who are interested in the recipe, the link is just below

http://www.dianasdesserts.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/recipes.recipeListing/filter/guests/recipeID/2987/Recipe.cfm