Simply Fabulicious People - Pastry Chef Christophe's Baubles, Trees and Other Delights

We’ve known about Hilton Singapore’s best kept secret for some time now, and we figured Christmas and the year-end holidays is the best time to throw the limelight on the hotel’s super creative Executive Pastry Chef, Christophe Grilo. So we caught up him just earlier this week with a candid, never-before-seen exclusive interview right here with SimplyFab. 

A master of whimsical confections who clearly spins sweet treats with a lively sense of humour, Chef Grilo’s Christmas confections are quirky and cute. They have a childish fun about them which makes them such winners. We recently had a preview of his lemon tart disguised as a Christmas tree – tangy, smooth and comforting yet not too sweet – and a golden chocolate Christmas bauble filled with tiramisu, all gloriously 3D in form, and as delicious as they are gorgeous. If you want to throw a peerlessly tasteful party for the yuletide season, SimplyFab ladies just have serve up these lighthearted confections, one for each guest. And because SimplyFab had a chance to, we squeezed in some probing, sugar-coated questions for Chef Christophe, just for you ladies….

SimplyFab: Your pastries are very creative and distinctive. How do you get these wonderful ideas and what do you want your customers to get out of it?

Chef Christophe: I feel inspired after two beers…! :) I am always curious and I like to try new things. It is not easy to create a new pastry, so I like to reflect on what has been done before and experiment with new ingredients and sometimes prepare a pastry in a different manner and get wonderful surprises. The pastries that evolved should be elegant and easy to eat. I hope you will feel good seeing it and enjoy it.

Lemon Tart disguised as a Christmas tree

SimplyFab: SimplyFab readers are sophisticated ladies who have been there, done that and bought the diamonds. What sort of confection would you recommend we serve as a suitable dinner party dessert that reflects our luscious spirit and lifestyle?

Chef Christophe: Fresh berries and raspberry sorbet in a shallow crispy meringue spherical eggshell, served with a light vanilla cream will be perfect for the ladies.

Christmas Panettone

(Not the Supremo though, but also yummy)

SimplyFab: What should we buy back from Hilton's Checkers Deli and serve for a Christmas party that will knock the socks off our guests?

Chef Christophe: The Supremo Panettone with High Quality Fruits made with one-year-old yeast and imported fruits from the south of France. To enjoy this bread, you should first lightly toast the slices and have it with a good vanilla ice cream.

Golden bauble tiramisu

SimplyFab: How should we eat the 3D lemon tart and golden bauble in a way befitting our elegance? Break it up from top down? Pull it apart piece by piece?

Chef Christophe: To eat the golden bauble: First, gently remove the top half of the golden sphere with your fingers, thereafter you can scoop up the tiramisu with a dessert spoon. To enjoy the 3D lemon tart, work your way up the Christmas Tree with a fork from its base.

Chef Christophe makes 3D cakes too, like this luxe handbag orange choc cake

SimplyFab: Oooo! We love to work our way from the bottom up all sorts of our just desserts! So what confection do you suggest we seduce someone with? How can you help us?

Chef Christophe: I will prepare an elegant crispy dark chocolate cake shaped in a perfect cube. Ensconced in a thin dark chocolate (66%) is soft hazelnut sponge with layers of chocolate and coffee cream and V.S.O.P. caramel.

SimplyFab: Lovely! And can you share with us a simple recipe we can whip up in our kitchens for post-dinner playtime?

Chef Christophe: Here’s the recipe for the One-Minute Espresso Tiramisu with a Vodka Shot. You should be able to prepare this in 1 minute.

One-Minute Espresso Tiramisu with a Vodka Shot

By Executive Pastry Chef, Christophe Grilo

Hilton Singapore

(Serves 6)

100g Digestive biscuit crumbs

250g Mascarpone cheese

25g Sugar

1/2 tsp Brown sugar

6 pcs Ladies fingers (biscotti)

20g Liquid Cream

2 shots Espresso

Vodka shots, as many as you like

Method:

1. Hand-whisk mascarpone cheese, liquid cream and sugar for half-minute.
2. Lay out 6 espresso cups and apportion some biscuit crumbs (don’t use all) into the cups.

3. Fill the cups ¾ full with the cream mix (from Step #1).

4. Add more biscuit crumbs into the cup

5. Add ½ tsp brown sugar into the double-shot espresso.

6. Break the ladies fingers into two and soak the lady fingers into the double-shot espresso.

7. Stick the soaked ladies fingers into the cup of tiramisu and serve with vodka shots.

8. To enjoy, down a shot of vodka and have your tiramisu. Repeat the process with vodka shots as many times as you like!

PS. You can get hold of his baubles and tree at Checkers Deli at the Hilton Singapore from now until 24 Dec.
- Ee Waun

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Binge - Mooncake Handbags and Last Minute Mooncake Must-Buys

Can you believe this is a mooncake box? I just couldn't resist posting it here at the top. Read more about it below.....

Five days more to Mid Autumn Festival (22 Sept) and I notice – rather delayed I admit – that this year, marketers are pushing family reunions as a focal point for the festival and gifting of mooncakes. Cynics may say you can trust marketers to find any way to sell something, but through rose-tinted spectacles, it is not a bad concept. Considering families are getting so small these days, I’m all for adopting this notion…After all, ‘lo hei’ during Chinese New Year came about in the same way and see how entrenched it is now?

In any case, simply fab ladies are enjoying life too much to be bogged down by cynicism. So heave out the extended family this weekend and do a post-dinner, moonlight dessert thing with the moon cakes, lanterns and Chinese tea. We’ve discovered a few more mooncake options out there, so if you haven’t already bought or gifted any, give these lovelies a look.

We love this disarmingly chic mooncake ‘handbag’ by Tung Lok (background). Sling the silk handles over your shoulder and no one would know that its mooncake you’re carrying. So fashion forward on the outside, yet embodies a traditional ‘auntie’ soul inside! What lies inside? Four assorted mooncakes - mixed nuts, egg yolk pandan lotus with pistachios, egg yolk white lotus and egg yolk red lotus. ($52 at most Tung Lok restaurants)

Tel: 9088 8008

Speaking of handbags, this gorgeous red number just arrived at my doorstep yesterday evening and it’s the cutest thing ever! Doesn't it just remind you of some luxe designer handbag, right down to the metallic chain and name tag? This limited edition sweetie is the work of the chefs at Xin Cuisine Holiday Inn Atrium in Outram Road, with two neat tiers inside for four mooncakes. Well known for updating traditional local flavours, the restaurant offers a particularly interesting and workable range of creative mooncakes - Champagne and Chocolate mooncake with pandan-infused lotus paste and a white chocolate truffle; bird's nest and red lotus seed paste; kirsch cherry mooncake and mini green tea mooncake with chocolate pearls. Creative, but no out into orbit. Plus they have the traditional Teochew yam paste mooncake too. This is absolute lusciousness and a definite must-buy!
Tel: 6731 7173

Apart from traditional baked mooncakes – which is a flat out favourite anyway – Hilton Singapore’s highlights are the mini cheese mooncakes (left) based on their famous cheesecakes. New flavours are Peach Melba, Hazelnut Cream, Passion Fruit and Chilli, and Chocolate and Strawberry, but they have also brought back last year’s favourites - Mango and Pecan, Rose and Chocolate Pearls, Strawberry and Ivory, and Berry Treat. Eight of these dainty mooncakes go into an ‘imperial box’ and are on sale at Checkers Deli and Takashimaya Square.

Tel: +65 6730 3392

All Chang-Er wannabes, go get your birds nest fix with Tian Fu Tea Room’s Bird’s Nest with Egg Custard Snow Skin Mooncakes. Sounds like something that will give your skin a boost, and certainly something that grandma would approve of. Also for the girls is Passion Fruit with Rose Paste in Snow Skin, a new flavour this year. The mooncakes here are all with lower sugar content. Get it nicely packaged as a gift, either with or without matching teas at Tian Fu Tea Room outlets at PARKROYAL on Beach Road and TOP of UOB Plaza 1, or at the takeaway Counter at OUB Central.

Tel: 6505 5722

Finally, the Marriott Singapore has rolled out some new flavours: Peanut Butter Jelly Snowskin Mooncake mixed with lotus paste (above) and a zesty Calamansi Cheese Snowskin Mooncake. If that’s too weird for you, there’s also the more traditional White Lotus Seed Paste with Dried Figs mooncake.But for me, the one that’s really off into orbit is the Chicken Bak-Kwah and Assorted Nuts mooncake (above). Obviously it has its followers, but I’d rather stick to less creative combinations personally, foodwriter notwithstanding! Available at Forecourt Stall at the hotel entrance.

Tel: 6831 4708

- Ee Waun

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