Love baking.....

The month of march is my beloved Monchéri birthday month. His birthday is on 20th and I was trying to find an original gift like a balloon flight over Granada but not only this is quite expensive but also with the weather we're having now, surely the balloon would have whisked us away to Lisbon or Morocco...would be funny though. A few days ago I had an illumination and told him he was gladly entitled to a whole month of sweetness, meaning I would bake him a different pastry each week during his birthday month. now do you believe me if I tell you I spent between 4 and 5 hours in the kitchen yesterday to make this ?........

we will be starting this month of sweetness with these little moka cakes

my little pieces don't really look like the ones you usually see in French pastries, which are entirely covered with coffee buttercream, but I just had one and it's too bad you can't taste them. Honestly, allow me to boast myself, but they are de-li-cious....!
I use Pierre Hermé's recipe from the Larousse des desserts, (the only one possible pastry book for me) and although the making is meticulous, tedious and time consuming, the result is really worth while.

my sweet readers, here is the recipe.....eh oui, 3 pages ! you first need to make the crème au beurre, perfumed with coffee, then the Gioconda biscuit, then an ordinary syrup perfumed with rhum, then put the biscuit 1h in the fridge, then set up the moka, slicing the biscuit into 3 circles, impregnating each circle with syrup, covering with the coffee buttercream and ground hazel nuts and so on....

Monchéri will taste it tomorrow with a couple of friends......

and this one is for YOU.....!
I know ...sadly and sadistically virtual

Have a great sweet week end !