Pastry Master Chef Jess Chiam Ko Seen whipped up a Christmas themed dessert using Selbourne Chocolate

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting one of  Malaysia's top pastry chef, Master Chef Jess Chiam Ko Seen at The Academy of Pastry and Bakery Arts Philippines. Chef Jess demonstrated how to create Christmas themed triple chocolate cookies, cupcakes with chocolate ganache and macaron with Selbourne.

With Master Chef Jess Chiam Ko Seen
Executive Pastry Chef of Academy of  Pasty and Bakery Arts Philippines

Chef Niklesh Sharma the Managing Director of Academy of  Pasty and Bakery Arts Philippines
welcomes everyone in the event and gives a brief introduction about the Academy.

Kaisheng Tay
Barry Callebaut representative

Selbourne is a leading compound chocolate brand in Asia and it is part of the Barry Callebaut gourmet division. It is a trusted brand by pastry chefs and other culinary professionals. Chef Jess prefers to use it because of its superb quality and the varying choices to fit a chef's specific needs. "The quality is so fine that it produces an excellent and instense chocolate taste. It can withstand high temperature like the High Heat Resistance Dark Compound and Semi Sweet Dark Compound, which is specifically manufactured for the South East Asia climate" said Kaisheng Tay.

Selbourne: Great cocoa taste and superior product quality begin with the cocoa trees.

Morsels of Callebaut 811 and  823

Barry Callebaut
finest Belgian chocolate

 Professional users such as chocolatiers, pastry chefs, bakeries, hotels, restaurants and caterers rely on Barry Callebaut’s premium chocolate products and on its convenient, ready-to-use and ready-to-sell products offered under a variety of gourmet brands

Master Pastry Chef Jess is a very organized professional who believes in structured training.
He is a great motivator and trainer to his students.

"It took me a week to prepare the elements of the petit four. You will eat it in less than a minute.
All I hope is that you will like it," said Chef Jess.

Its amazing to see how meticulous and passionately Master Chef Jess works after all these years he's been doing this. He has been in the industry for 18 years and bagged several championships and titles such as "Champion for Asia Pastry Cup 2014", "Best Pastry Chef of the Year Malaysia 2011-2012 & 2012 -2013", "Culinary Olympic (IKA) National team 2012 winner of Silver Medal", "Culinary World Cup (Luxembourg) National team 2006 Winner of Silver Medal", to name a few and this year, a team of pastry chefs that he led ranked 4th at the Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie.

Yummy spread prepared by Master Pastry Chef Jess

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate overload

Macarons <3
one of the best tasting macarons I've ever tasted

Christmas Macarons <3

Cupcake with chocolate ganache
Each element of design was intricately done by Chef Jess, chocolate design made with Selbourne

Who wouldn't love to have this lovely macarons in their Christmas Buffet Spread?

Now you can make your own using the premium compound chocolate Selbourne which is already available locally. Selbourne is very easy to use as you don't have to temper the chocolate anymore, you can just melt with a Double-Boiler or with a Microwave.

When I was toured inside the facility I suddenly missed working in the kitchen, I'am excited to try out Selbourne, I still don't know what to make out of it but it turns out pretty I'll share it with you. :)

Want to add or enhance your skill in baking, chocolate and pastry making, check out Academy of Pastry and Bakery Arts Philippines. The Academy is an insternational pastry school is based  in Makati with professional chefs running the place. They also have visiting guest chefs from all over the world.

For more information about Academy of Pastry & Bakery Arts Philippines, log on to: www.academyofpastryartsphilippines.com or visit the academy at Metro House Bldg., 345 Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue,  Makati City or call Te. 849-2395.

Heartaches over Breakfast

                I invited my friend who at that time was pouring her heart over a break up with her bf.  It was after my shift when I met up with her and suggested we get a good breakfast to atleast take her mind off her problems. I suggested a place we both haven’t tried and remembering that she always wanted to visit the food joints at Teacher’s Village, I took her to Breakfast and Pies.

Facade

Le Menu looks depressing they need to change this ASAP.

Corn Flakes Cereal Milk + Crazy Cookies <3

         To get her distracted I ordered Cereal Milk, I told the waiter I wanted the Fruit Loops Cereal Milk and the waiter broke my heart by saying “Ma’am, wala po ngayun ng Fruit Loops , Corn Flakes lang.” I was devastated, Immediately a tear fell from my eyes as I try to remain calm and told him, “Cge Corn Flakes na lang..” (Char lang but still it was sad because I LOVE FRUIT LOOPS!!!!) (Yes and yes to those extra exclamation points.) I also got us some of the Compost cookies which they now call Crazy cookies. This is a weird but awesome cookie because these cookies are made of random (edible ;) ) ingredients that the baker finds. Pretty Crazy right? The Cereal milk tasted awesome and it paired perfectly with the Crazy cookie.

Caramelized Spam

                There were a lot of stuff in the menu that looks yummy but the one that caught my attention was the CARAMELIZED SPAM. SPAM. Yes you got me there at SPAM. ‘Twas the bomb! I loved it.

Dark Chocolate Champorado

                As for my friend  she wasn’t really hungry but decided to get the Dark Chocolate Champorado. Comfort Food and Carbo loading for emo eater :P It has a weird twist because its Served with Cream Cheese and Cereal Milk. Cereal Milk is not weird it’s L-O-V-E, Cream cheese was the weird part in a good way. It gave that sour taste in the sweet Dark Chocolate Champorado Love Story.  It was also served with a caramelized I dunno if its some sort of dried fish or squid but whatever it is It worked well with the Champorado, I didn’t bother to ask the waiter what it is because 1) I didn’t want to interrupt my friend as she pour her heart out and 2) the waiter already broke my heart. Hmp!

After a good breakfast and heart to heart talk, I hoped that my friend would  be ok soon.

PS. I tried to make my own Fruit Loops Milk and failed haha >.< and that I think is the perfect reason to go back to Breakfast and Pies. My friend is now OK. Their back together. I’m happy that she is happy ^_^

ON THE SPOT: TOBLERONE CRUNCHY ALMONDS

New Discovery..well at least for me and PigBunny ! ^_^

It's almost like the same classic Toblerone but with bigger chunks of Almonds and it has "Salted Caramelized Almonds", but you could barely feel the saltiness though

In some country this variant is called TOBLERONE CRUNCHY SALTED ALMONDS. 

This one that I got was imported from Singapore per the packaging and was made in Switzerland. 

Seriously PigBunny?! Why >.<

Found my new favorite Toblerone ~Toblerone Crunchy Almonds

YES! CRUNCH ALMONDS!

i love almonds ^_^

Look at those chunks of almonds and nougats

omnomnom ^_^

Fun Fact

There's a bear in the logo of Toblerone

Toblerone originated in Bern, Switzerland. 

A city whose name is rumored to mean "City of bears"

And yeah .. just a tip when eating your favorite Toblerone, To easily break off a single piece of Toblerone, pull toward the bar, not away from it. Try it! ^_^