29/03/2011
Sift desserts
灣仔皇后大道東51號地下
G/F, 51 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/fraisier-sift-e2158262
Sift has always been on my list to visit, but whenever I attempted to go, it was either closed, booked by press or in the blazing hot summer.
The cakes there are takeaway only, so a definite no-no in heavy rain or heat.
Anyway finally went on a fine spring day, there were two cabinets of cakes, one end was cupcakes and the other side was macaroons and pastries.
I bought three macarons, Jasmine, Pistachio and Caramel.
For the pastries I couldn’t decide between the Frasier and the Pistache, but in the end I got the Frasier because it looked better.
The Frasier was made of a layer of almond joconde, then a layer of pistachio crème mousseline with fresh halved strawberries and topped with Italian meringue. The Joconde is an almond sponge cake, containing almonds, it differs from other sponge cakes by having whole eggs (rather than just yolks) beaten with sugar and ground almonds before the meringue is folded in. Joconde is baked in thin layers on baking sheets. Joconde is used to make linings for the outsides of charlottes, a traditional French raspberry mousse cake, and other Bavarian mousse cakes.
The Pistache was Pistachio mousse, raspberry cream, pistachio joconde and pistachio dacquoise.
The dacquoise is the nut meringue layer.
The Frasier tasted much better than expected, the strawberries were ripe and fresh, and the pistachio crème mousseline gave it some nutty taste, the texture of the pistachio crème mousseline was like the silky praline filling and not too sweet, then the final sweetness came from the Italian meringue which was smooth and creamy. The strawberries mellowed out the heaviness of the whole cake by its natural berry taste.
I like to cut my Frasier so that there are equal amounts of crème mousse, strawberry, sponge and Italian meringue.
The strawberries have been placed appropriately so that the cake can be cut into three parts equally then cutting it in the middle.
Jasmine Macaron:
This was the first one I tried; the texture was sugary and then melted in the mouth.
There was no jasmine taste at all, but a slight aftertaste.
Caramel Macaron:
This was slightly bitter and salty, but tasted quite nice.
Pistachio Macaron:
This one was the best, light and nutty.
Overall all the macarons were good and not too sweet. The cakes tasted as good as it looked.
