melody.

Before I became obsessed with Pierre Herme's macaron book, I was infatuated with his dessert book. Since my supply of ground almonds has temporarily run out, I decided to turn back to making cakes for a while.

I call this Herme's recipe, but I've altered it so much that it's hardly recognizable when compared to the picture in the book. Melody is supposed to comprise of, from bottom up- a cinnamon tart base, genoise, twenty-hour apples, cinnamon-caramel bavarian cream, another tart crust and some finely sliced apples arranged in a concentric circle as decoration. What my version entails is a much simpler one- cinnamon tart base, hot milk sponge, sauteed poached pears and the bavarian cream. The sponge was a leftover from my swiss roll and the pears took only a few minutes rather than the twenty hours needed to prepare the apples.

I believe I let my caramel go darker than it was supposed to. My bavarian cream is a coffee-colored one while the one in the book appears to be custard-colored.

One of the things I like about Herme's recipes is that they don't add unnecessary sugar. So I can eat my dessert without spiraling into a hyperactive craze later on. And that's always a good thing because I eat a lot of desserts.

You know why I chose to use just 1 tart layer instead of the original 2? Because I want to use it in one of his other recipes which I will be making very soon! Stay tuned~