Before the month ends, let me recap two baking classes that I managed to go for! I’ve actually not been baking much this year, so these classes are a tiny breath of fresh air that remind me how much I enjoy baking (and how tiring it can be).

By the way, both classes were from Nanatang! The character tart class is available year-round while the bomba cake class was a special since the teacher (Pristy) flew in from Indonesia to conduct the class.

Character Tarts

The first class I went for was the character tart class, which I wanted to take mostly because one of the characters was Totoro and I loooooove Studio Ghibli! I was quite surprised to see that even though I was the only student who signed up for this class, it was not cancelled and I ended up having a one-to-one session with the instructor!

My instructor was Yen and she was so helpful! She really tried to make me do as much as possible (except weighing out the ingredients) so that I could practice what she was saying. I learnt that:

1. Making the dough and the fillings are manageable
2. Making the tart is not

Most of the time was spent crafting the characters and making sure that nothing fell off! Thankfully it all turned out well in the end and my family also liked the tarts. I’d like to make this again someday but I might need to buy the tart rings first – or maybe I could make plain tarts by improvising with muffin tins?

Anyway, I was probably most proud of myself for carrying all the tarts back in one piece in time to take this photo under natural lighting.

Deco Bomba Cake Class

The second class I went for was the Deco Bomba Tart by Pristy. I was keen to take this class because I’ve never made chocolate spheres before and I wanted to learn how to do that in person. The class covered making the cake, custard, and chocolate half-spheres, as well as decorating everything.

I was actually a little surprised that the cake was only a base for the whole treat. The inside of the chocolate sphere is a cream, which seemed like it might be a bit too jelat? We had a lot of cake left over so I actually cut small pieces to put in the sphere so it was a chocolate + cream mixture instead.

The decorations here are made from modelling chocolate, which tasted good but were so time-consuming to make. I have the spherical silicon mould, so if I ever do this again I think I will just sprinkle some edible glitter on top and call it a day!

I’m actually wondering if I should buy tart moulds that match the size of the spheres. I’m thinking it might be cute too make tarts that are topped with chocolate! Of course then the question becomes: when will I make these?