Happy Valentine Day everyone Or Happy Single Awareness Day.
Wishing everyone a happy Valentine day and hope everyone is happy and have no rejection at all. (Hopefully)
The common thing in Singapore is pretty much like the western countries, where is usually the guys buy things for the girl, however in Japan is the opposite where girls give chocolates to the guys and hope they get something back in return on white's day. For me, I prefer making chocolates or baking something for my boyfriend instead of him getting me an overpriced flowers or dinner.
Since Japan has this tradition of having girls making chocolates for guys (or buying), it has produced many baking kits that usually only make their appearance when Valentine Day is approaching.
Since Japan has this tradition of having girls making chocolates for guys (or buying), it has produced many baking kits that usually only make their appearance when Valentine Day is approaching.
These baking kits that are mostly Do-It-Yourself idiot proof are decorated in cute and girly packaging which sells like hotcakes.
The one in the video below is in Kyoto Loft, where they showcase the kits on the first floor to promote them 2 weeks before Valentine day. I was lucky enough to buy some back again for my friends and myself.
Not only do they lay the kits out, but they also gave a sample piece on how it will look like once is baked which is really informative to know. There are many kits available from different brands and the price is ranging from ¥600 ~ ¥2000 (Without tax) for each box. The quality of the chocolate and the packaging also makes a difference in the price.
So last year I bought the fondant au chocolat to try out and the van houten cocoa truffle was for Aya. The results of both kits were a tremendous success and the lava cake was so good that we ate 6 piece out of the 8 and I only have 2 to Vincent.
This year, I didn't want to buy the same brand again because I wanted to test other brands and kits. So these are the kits that I bought back for my friends and I. The doughnut muffin is for Pris, while the rabbit cookies are for Aya.
The chocolate lave cake is for the guys to make for us and the remaining last two is mine.
The kit that I will be using for my Valentine Day gift will be this one.
I bought the Macaroons kit for fun and to use it next time. I shall blog about it next time once I get to use it.
The Gâteau au Chocolat baking kit which includes 2 heart mold.
Inside, you are expected to have these ingredients and the one that you need to provide for yourself is the unsalted butter, milk and egg. (Which are usually fresh ingredients)
The chocolate powder, raw chocolate, mold and powder sugar.
The baking starts and we all got down to our kits.
(Since I didn't have many tools to go around, we had to share)
Please read the instruction on the back and don't be like these guys who didn't even know that they needed to put flour into their mix.
After a lot of hard work and laughter, here are the results.
My cake came out really well and I was proud of it!
The kit even gave powdered sugar for the toppings.
Vincent looks happy because is not a rock this time XD
My friends doughnut muffins and cookies turn out pretty well too! The sweetness was just right and both of them were really Delicious.
The doughnut muffins had strawberry filling inside which they provided and the cookies had chocolate pens to decorate them with.
However, for the guys, it was their best effort. It hasn't really baked at first and they put it for another 10 mins which resulted to 4 out of 6 turning to muffins. (Well is not that idiot proof after all)
Even thought their lave cakes didn't turn out to be what we expected and only 2 was passable. It still tasted pretty good. Well, this also show that you can screw up if you don't do it right with the baking part. However, if you really follow the recipe to the book, I am sure it won't be this bad.
This concludes the baking session for Valentine day that I had with my friends and here are some notes for the kits.
If you are not good at baking and always wanted to try out you should buy these kits. The instruction given is all in Japanese so be prepared to use a translator. (Like google translate) Some kits like the doughnut muffin gives a detailed instruction sheet inside the box with pictures. While most of them are just behind the box with drawn instruction. The kit usually provides you with the chocolate and dry ingredients while the fresh ingredients are not included. Some of the kits, like the cookies provide you with the cutter which you can keep. The kit also includes molds, cups, holders and bags. (EVERYTHING IS THERE) Some kits which are usually the decorating type, also includes chocolate pens and sprinkles. Some kits also include Jam and other ingredients inside. There are many kits available, like chocolate cakes to cheese cakes bar, chocolate truffles, cake pops, cereal bars and etc. It is pretty hard to find when is not Valentine season and probably the only way to get it is from Amazon