Matcha Azuki Chocolate Entremet

Happy Lunar New Year everyone! 

For some reason, I'm beginning to find a renewed interest and excitement over Chinese New Year since I got married. Somehow it's fresher and more interesting for me this year compared to the last.

I'm not posting a New Year bake today, rather I am sharing a Matcha Azuki Chocolate Entrement I made for my beloved hubby's birthday. I used the same recipe here, added more azuki beans this time round and swapped the matcha powder amount around (10g for the whipped cream and 5g for the mousse), and it turned out beautifully well. The texture of the mouse was lovely, and my hubby and family loved the strong matcha taste coupled with the slight sweetness of dark chocolate and azuki beans. 

I was heartened as they don't normally enjoy the cakes this much, but they definitely did this time round. If you're looking for a good and easy matcha entremet to put together within a day, this would be one recipe for keeps :).

Matcha Rolled Cake

Happy New Year everyone! How has 2014 been so far?

For me, it's been pretty eventful. I have 2 work trips lined up for the next 3 months and I'm partially hesitant about going cause of the freezing cold temperatures in other parts of the world. But nonetheless, it's exciting as I get to travel to places I've never been to before. I'm feeling pretty positive about the New Year and hope yours will be good as well :).

Following the last rolled cake I made here, I was inspired to improve on it and make an even better one. Hence here it is, a simple variation made with matcha and filled with vanilla bean creme chantilly and peach slices. The result was delicious, I loved it myself and hope my friends who shared it with me enjoyed it too.

As usual, I'm pretty bad at cake decor hence I just piped creme chantilly on top of the cake and sprinkled it with snow sugar and matcha powder.

Matcha Rolled Cake

Adapted from Cakelets and Doilies

Ingredients:

For the rolled sponge

Part A- egg yolk mixture:

3 egg yolks

30g castor sugar

60ml milk

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

40ml vegetable oil

70g cake flour

10g matcha powder

Part B- meringue:

3 egg whites

30g castor sugar

1 tsp cornstarch

For the sugar syrup

10g castor sugar

20ml hot water

For the creme chantilly

150ml whipping cream, chilled

18g icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

Fresh fruits of your choice (I used peach)

Method:

To make Part A- egg yolk mixture:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celsius (or 150 degrees celsius fan-forced). Grease and line a 28cm x 28cm flat square cake pan with baking paper.
Using an electric mixer, beat egg yolks and sugar on medium-high speed until pale and creamy.Combine milk, vanilla bean paste and oil in a small bowl. Add to beaten egg yolk mixture and whisk at low speed until just combined. Sift flour and matcha powder over egg mixture, and whisk at low speed until smooth and well-combined. 

To make Part B- meringue:
Combine sugar and cornstarch. Clean and dry the whisk thoroughly, and in a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until foamy. Add half the sugar-cornstarch mixture and continue beating for a few minutes, then add remaining sugar-cornstarch mixture and beat until egg whites are glossy and stiff peak form.Add one-third of meringue into egg yolk mixture from Part A. Fold in lightly with a spatula to loosen the mixture a little. Then add the rest of the meringue and fold to incorporate completely.Pour batter into the prepared pan, spreading the mixture evenly and smoothing the top with a spatula. Lightly tap the bottom of the tray on the work surface.Bake for 14 minutes until the cake has risen slightly and feels springy to the touch. Remove from oven. Turn sponge straight from oven onto a sheet of baking paper. Peel off baking paper from the bottom of the sponge. Cover with baking paper, then a damp tea towel. Set aside to cool completely.

To make sugar syrup:
Dissolve sugar in hot water. Set aside to cool.

To make creme chantilly:
Combine cream, icing sugar and vanilla bean paste in a clean bowl. Place bowl over a larger bowl filled with ice cubes and water. Using an electric mixer, whip cream at medium speed until stiff peaks form but cream is still smooth.

To assemble:
When the cake is completely cool, brush sugar syrup over the cake, followed by the creme chantilly and fresh fruits. Roll up the cake around the filling. Wrap the cake and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Coloured Rolled Cake

This is the season to be jolly, and I'm inspired to create all sorts of pretty and edible desserts for the numerous celebration parties that I've been going to.

For the gathering tomorrow, I'm bringing a Coloured Rolled Cake. Who else would have thought of this besides the Japanese? They make all things look so kawaii, even a simple swiss roll. I adapted Junko's rolled cake recipe from Cakelet's and Doilies' blog. This was a breeze to make and the texture of the cake was fabulous - soft and spongy, just the way I like mine to be.

I think I was a little too heavy-handed on the colouring as it turned out bright pink and green when I wanted it to be pastel in colour. Oh well, lesson learnt...next time I'll be slower to add in the colours :).

I whipped up a simple creme chantilly and lined the sponge with mandarin oranges, all rolled and into the fridge within an hour! The next I make this I'll probably opt for a custard based cream with bananas in it...perhaps with polka dotted sponge! I get excited thinking about all the various combinations I can create with a simple rolled cake :).

Here's another picture of the cake - all sliced up and ready to go!

Oooh...how I miss baking once again. There will be more posts to come...I promise! 

Blessed Christmas 2013

It's been close to a year since my last post, and many things have happened since. Here are just a few to share:

1. I have...gotten married! Yes, no longer single and with all the time in the world to do the things I want :). But good nonetheless!
2. I have...changed jobs again! In a new role, new industry, not far from what I dreamed of doing...but it is reaaal tough >.<
3. I have...grown another year! Looking forward to an exciting new season and year ahead of me, hopefully with more time to bake and photograph and eat and experiment!

This Christmas, my husband Darren has decided to whip up a sSteak as the main course, with Garlic Baguette and Minestrone Soup as the starter. And I did a simple Rose Coconut Cherry Ice Cream topped with Cocoa Nibs to finish off the meal. The grape juice we had from Montalto Wineyard of Victoria Australia was the best I've ever had. It definitely capped off a sweet Christmas meal with the family.

All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas. And not to forget the reason for this celebration is because we have an even more wonderful Jesus, the baby born one blessed night that gave us the greatest Gift of our lives.

Merry Christmas everyone! :)

To the Happiest Year Yet

Durian Swiss Rolls

What a ride it has been in 2012 - a year that's been full of ups and downs, yet God's fingerprints are still all over it. I went for Hillsong Conference, the London 2012 Olympics, got proposed to and had opportunities to do the things that I love...what more can I ask for? :)

I ended the year with a gathering with my kingdom friends. It was a potluck party and our small group brought along some Durian, Coffee and Pandan Swiss Rolls from Rich & Good Cake Shop, as well as made Peri Peri Chicken Wings with Nando's Peri Peri marinade.

Will leave you with the pictures to enjoy while I wish you all a very Happy New Year! 

It shall be an even better year yea? :)

Pandan Swiss Rolls

Peri Peri Chicken Wings

Peri Peri Chicken Wings

Nandos' Peri Peri Sauce

Christmas Cookie Pops

As usual, I come back once in while when there's an occasion to bake for *grins*. How I miss fiddling around in the kitchen and creating pretty and yummy goodies for all to share. Christmas is always the season for baking. Everyone's in a celebratory mood, regardless of race of religion, gift giving happening everywhere and we are all expecting a better year of us - what more can we ask for? Such a joyous mood calls for joy inducing treats too, and this year I decided to make cookie pops!

Inspired by Happy Home Baking's post, I set out to look for the bakeable M&Ms...but I couldn't find them anywhere! I remember we use to see them in the supermarts and baking shops, but somehow they just disappeared when I wanted to use them again. Sigh. Anyways, I substituted them with Ghiradhelli Chocolate Chips (more yummy than M&Ms for sure!) and Roasted Hazelnuts. And boy, they turned out very yummy indeed!

I adapted the recipe from this link, didn't search very far or wide due to the shortage of time, and I am real glad it turned out very well. Once baked, I simply wrapped them with clear plastic wrappings, put on the "handmade" sticker I bought from Japan some time ago and tied a ribbon round the stem. They look pretty cute don't they? :)

Can't wait to see my friends' reactions when they see this. I am getting very excited myself! Hahaha...

Hope you having a wonderful Christmas too, enjoy the year end holidays!

Pandan Chiffon Cake - A Singaporean Childhood Favourite

Was just watching Liverpool vs Arsenal on TV earlier, it was painful to watch (mebeing a Liverpool fan) that I switched off my TV set and decided to blog instead. Recently, 2 of colleagues departed from the company and the week seemed like a week of farewell - saying our goodbyes and well wishes to each of them. It felt sad, yet at the same time happy for them to be moving on to a new and better place. And in the midst of that, I also received a couple of requests for chiffon cakes, so here goes :).

Singaporeans first knew chiffon cakes in pandan flavour. Personally, I never knew other flavours existed till I started baking. I love its light, fluffy texture with its gentle sweetness that makes eating this feels like a treat! Having seen my mum gone through her fair share of chiffon cake failures, I never dared to try making it, though the Pandan Chiffon Cake has always been my favourite. I tried a couple of Pandan Chiffon Cake recipes following the success of my Chocolate, Marbled & Yuzu Tea Chiffon Cakes, but they never quite satisfied my tastebuds. Yet at the same, I had to make one by Monday...hence I picked a new recipe by Chef Judy Koh of Creative Culinaire and hope that it works out well eventually.

The recipe was easy to follow, but the cake batter turned out too little for my 22cm pan. I would recommend using this recipe on a 20cm pan instead, as I prefer my chiffon cakes tall :).

Guess I'll have to wait with bated breath till Monday to find out how it tastes! Since I can't cut it in advance now >.<.

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:

5 pandan leaves, finely chopped

3 Tbsps water

48g egg yolk, from about 4 small eggs

70g castor sugar

1/8 tsp sale

20ml corn oil

36ml thick coconut milk (I used the chilled version that is more suited to my tastes)

1/4 tsp pandan paste

54g cake flour

120g egg white, from about 4 small eggs

1/8 cream of tartar (i replaced this with corn flour)

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

2. Blend the pandan leaves with water to a fine pulp. Wrap the pulp in muslin cloth and squeeze to extract the juice. Discard the pulp and set aside the juice.

3. Whisk together the egg yolks, 30g sugar, salt, corn oil, coconut milk, pandan paste and pandan juice until well incorporated.

4. Sieve the cake flour into the pandan mixture and continue to whisk till smooth. Set aside.

5. Whisk the egg whites till foamy, add the sugar and cream of tartar and whisk till stiff peak form.

6. Gently fold the egg white mixture into the cake batter, 1/3 at a time, until well incorporated.

7. Pour the batter into a 20cm tube pan and bake for 40 minutes.

8. Remove the cake from the oven and invert it on a rack to cool before removing from the mould.

Alice in Wonderland Wedding Cookies

It's been a long long time since I blogged. Haven't been checking my blog for the last few months, neither have I baked apart from what I post...haha. I miss baking, wish I can have more time to do this, and am working towards doing this more in the next couple of months.

I'm glad that a good friend of mine actually asked me to create a set of Alice in Wonderland cookies for her wedding. She sent me an image for inspiration, and the standards were just waaaay better than what I can do. Hence, I can only try, and try my best. 

Ultimately, I came up with a set of 3 cookies - the TeaPot, the Ribbon & the Poker Cards. I'm glad they turned out pretty okay, though they weren't as crunchy as I would have liked. Reckoned the humidity didn't help the icing to dry well....

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed doing this! Darren even did an amazing job on creating 3D Alice in Wonderland cut-outs....they were beau-ti-ful, check this out - so cute!

Apologies for the poor photo quality. I had too much to carry that day and only took these with my handy camera phone..gotta make do with these!

Will just leave you with these other photos I took...till the next project that comes along the way :).

Plentitude Macarons

It's been a while, a pretty long while since my last post. Are you wondering what I've been up to since then? Well, after changing to my new job, the hours are long, workload's heavier and I don't have much time nor energy to dream of baking sweet treats like I do last time. When I get off work, some time is spent destressing (i.e shopping) to get my mind out of work mode and into the lifestyle mode. And after that, I'm pretty much ready to go to bed. Baking time is almost non-existent.

Well, I miss baking! Miss the days when I can dream about the goodies I can bake with my "spare" brain capacity. Miss the days when I can spend long hours in the kitchen without worrying about finishing within a certain number of hours. All that has changed, quite abit in fact. 

I feel a little rusty in the kitchen, a little lost when I can't find those ingredients like I used to, a little sad when I had to throw away expired ingredients that hasn't seen the daylight since months ago. Wish I had more time to make good use of them rather than throwing them away right now.

The first thing I decided to bake when I had an off day is macarons! I have not tried any recipe from the Pierre Herme's Macarons book yet, and decided to pick a simply one - Plentitude Macarons. The description for this sounded delicious enough - caramel chocolate filling with fleur de sel dark chocolate chips sandwiched between 2 shells - I'm sold just by reading this!

Seriously, I was quite rusty. I forgot to start beating my egg whites and my sugar syrup was already reaching 110 degrees. I overmixed my batter and it turned out pretty runny. I was all set for a failed batch until I saw those frilly feet rising up high. Phew!

However, the texture didn't turn out quite right, they were wayyyy too crispy for their own good. I had a good laugh when I bit into one and heard a crunching sound HAHA. Ended up with a batch of Crispy Plentitude Macarons!

Apart from the shells, the caramel chocolate filling was super yummy! I caramelised the sugar to a deep amber and it gave this a nice burnt sugar taste which I love. The filling's a winner for sure :).

I'm still in 2 minds as to whether these can be shared with the world. After all, it's kinda like a "failed" batch, though it's edible. Alternatively, I can look at this as being the "pioneer" of Crispy Plentitude Macarons...HAHA.

Oh well...

A Charming Blackforest Cake

It was a case of right time, right place. I was at I12 Katong's supermarket when I spotted the jar of preserved morello cherries. Been wanting to make Hidemi Sugino's rendition of the blackforest cake, hence I grabbed a jar and made these :). It was for a good reason, my darling Darren's birthday! Haven't made an entremet in months...I hope the taste will turn out fine...haha.

I first spotted the recipe on Evan's blog. Her version of Charmed (Sugino's name for this cake) is absolutely lovely. I had some problems with the dark chocolate chantilly but eventually it turned out alright. The steps were really easy to follow, one of the easiest entremets to make, but not the easiest to get it perfect.

I loved the taste of preserved morello cherries, had it with my pint of Awesomely Chocolate ice cream from Udders, which was very yummy! This particular brand had it lightly sweetened...I would have preferred it more tart though :).

Unfortunately, I gotta wait for my darling to be back in Singapore before I can present this to him and celebrate his birthday. Well, at least I had a liiiitle bit of time to make a cake for him this time round!

By the way, anyone has experienced issues with the whipped cream hardening after folding in the melted chocolate? I wonder what went wrong with mine, as mine kinda "seized" when I folded in the chocolate, even after I cooled it. I wish the texture of my chantilly could be softer and smoother though...any suggestions?

Almond Cocoa Nib Sticks for Chinese New Year

For some reason, January passed in a blink of the eye. It's now nearing the end of the month and we're heading into Chinese New Year! Gosh, where did the first month of 2012 go? I really wonder, hmmm...

This year, I received a big Bengawan Solo hamper plus loads of CNY goodies including Kueh Bangkit, Bak Kwa, Famous Amos Cookies, Danish Cookies etc. I reckon there was no need for me to make any, plus I didn't have much time. Hence this was the only thing I made - Almond Cocoa Nib Sticks.

I made these twice before, once very recently for Christmas Favours, and they've received very good reviews and feedback! Even mum, who's usually very critical of my bakes, commented that these were really good. Hence, I decided to make a double batch of this for the new year!

I simply love the raw crunchy texture of cocoa nibs with its full and deep cocoa flavour. It's like eating chocolate, but without the sweetness! Baked to a crispy crunch, these are especially good with a cup of tea or coffee!

A friend of mine gave me a sachet of mint hot chocolate during Christmas, hence I can't resist having them with these Almond Cocoa Nib Sticks. They were absolutely delicious :).

Before I leave you the recipe, just wanna wish all of you a very Happy Chinese New Year! May you PROSPER BEYOND MEASURE! Yippee!

Almond Cocoa Nib Sticks

adapted from Bittersweet by Alice Medrich

Ingredients:

3/4 cup ground almonds

1 cup + 2 tbsp plain flour

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

6 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into chunks

2 tbsp water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp almond extract

1/4 cup cocoa nibs

Preparation:

1. Combine ground almonds, flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a few times. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture looks like a mass of bread crumbs. 

2. Combine the water, vanilla and almond extract, drizzle them into the bowl and pulse just until the dough looks damp. Add the cocoa nibs and pulse until evenly dispersed. The dough will not form a smooth cohesive mass, it will be crumbly but it will stick together when you press it.

3. Turn out the dough onto a sheet of foil and form it into a 6 by 9 inch rectangle that is 1/2 inch thick. Fold the foil over the dough and press firmly with your hands to compress it, then wrap it airtight. Slide a cookie sheet under it and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

4. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Slice the dough into 1/2 cm thick slices and place them on the lined cookie sheet at least 1 inch apart.

5. Bake for 12-14 minutes until the cookies are golden.

Pink Peppermint Macarons for the New Year!

Happy New Year! I'm so glad 2011 has passed, and that I survived it! Looking forward to an awesome 2012, which I know will definitely be a great great year of unceasing fruitfulness!

Secondly, am glad to be baking again. After surviving the last few mad and crazy months of 2011, I can finally take a short breather and indulge myself in some me-baking-time...heh.

I made these with the intention of celebrating New Year, yet the colour turned out to be more suitable for Valentine's Day instead! Well, at least they were cherry enough to bring forth the year :). I made one of my favourite flavours of all time - peppermint chocolate - and sandwiched the mint chocolate ganache between plain macaron shells. They turned out simply heavenly :).

It's such a luxury to sip a cuppa tea, with some macarons at the side. I love these simple pleasures of life, so simple yet so enjoyable and comforting. When I have a home to call my own next time, I'll be sure to dedicate a nice tea corner by a window to enjoy a warm cup of afternoon tea.

This year, hope to explore more unique macaron flavours and move out of my comfort zone! I wonder if that will eventually materialise...haha! We'll see :).

Christmas 2012

It's Christmas time once again! Another awesome year has passed and I have many things to thank God for this year. Time to sit back, relax and count the blessings :).

Since I'm really short on time this year, my colleagues and I decided to organise a combined baking session to make cookies for all our very helpful colleagues in the office! Here's what we made:

Chocolate Almond Rounds & Almond Cocoa Nib Cookies with handmade tags :).

I hope our colleagues love them as much as we enjoyed making them! I love these handmade tags!

As for family dinner this year, we had turkey, roast potatoes, mango avocado prawn salad and a chocolate logcake. Here's an overview of the spread :).

Mango Avocado Prawn Salad with Honey Dressing

Fruit Platter - Rainer Cherries, Korean Strawberries, Grapes and Longans

Table Setting with half the dinner spraed

Mini fresh Christmas Tree!

I didn't have the full set of photos as I went to finish up the turkey and potatoes after taking these, hence the incomplete pics! Anyway, thought I'd share these with you anyway as I haven't been blogging much these days.

Merry Christmas!!

Cookie Topped Chocolate Cream Puffs

You know, I lost my phone over the weekend. It's horrible and I hate this feeling, especially when I have no clue how I lost it...it just disappeared. Well, looking on the bright side, I got a spanking new phone that does not have the iPhone button issues like my old phone...though it burnt a hole in my pocket. Sigh...these things happen don't they? I wish they didn't though...haha.

I made these Cookie Topped Chocolate Cream Puffs last week, months after my not-so-successful attempt at making eclairs. I have no idea what went wrong in my first attempt but the choux pastry really wasn't crisp nor tasty. This time round, I tried a different recipe adapted from Chelle's blog. The results turned out fabulous and I simply love how these cream puffs taste! They were less buttery and milky than the previous recipe I tried, perfect for my dairy-sensitive tastebuds :).

On the downside, I think my cream puffs turned out really ugly. The thick-skinned me still posted this up anyway...haha...simply because they were so delicious! Seriously, don't be put off by their looks. They could have looked alot better if I'd used a smaller piece of cookie dough on each of these little pastries. They would have spread a little more and looked more cute than burnt :).

Oh well, regardless of their looks, I love these nonetheless. I made a simple pastry cream using Pierre Herme's recipe and filled them with it...oooh....these were sooo chocolaty and yummy!

Recently, I also bought a new victorian style tiered plate for high tea. I'm dreaming of having a nice homemade afternoon tea with some of my friends one of these days! I hope it materialises real soon! Haha  :).

Stamped Shortbreads

It was a special occasion, our 5 month anniversary, and we reached the point where we needed more grace in our relationship. Though I know "anniversary" is not quite the right word to describe it, but still, we used it used it anyway. Thought it would be nice to make something sweet and personal for him...and stamped shortbreads came up. I used a simple recipe from Daily Delicious and the cute little wordpress I had to create these. I have to say, I think they look pretty cute!

These were so easy to make that I had a dozen other cookie ideas as I was shaping them before baking. I can totally visualise how people will be so happy to receive personalised cookies like this!

To showcase the wordings, I packed them in a transparent box with a simple ribbon for the recipient. All the words that I wanted to say, prepared in the form that I know best - cookies.

And here's the recipes :).

Stamped Shortbreads

adapted from Daily Delicious

Ingredients:

100g unsalted butter (cold and cut into pieces)

⅛tsp salt
40g icing sugar
120g cake flour
45g rice flour

Preparation:
1. Place the butter into a bowl and sift cake flour, rice flour, icing sugar and salt over the butter.
2. Cut the butter and flour mixture into small pieces (or you can use your fingers), when the mixture looks like small bits of bread crumb, pour out of the bowl onto a work surface.
3. Knead the crumbs until stick together and smooth.
4.Wrap with the plastic, flatten the dough into the shape of a disk, refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
5. When ready to back, preheat the oven to 160°C
6. Roll the dough until 5mm thick. Cut into the desired shapes, place on the prepared baking sheet and stamp the cookies with the prepared wordpress
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a light golden colour.

Chocolate Mousse Tart

Hey hey it's Sunday! How I love slow and lazy Sunday mornings when I can wake up at any time I want and take my time to indulge in my favourite activities. Somehow I think brunch are made for Sundays, and I kinda wish I had a long relaxing brunch today, which didn't quite happen. The next best thing will be to spend a few hours in the kitchen, baking up something sweet and pretty :).

My initial plan was to make a layered cake...either a pure chocolate layered cake or a matcha chocolate version. I rummaged through the kitchen to see if I have all the ingredients I needed and found one key missing - eggs. Sigh, no cake for me today.

My thoughts went back to a lovely tart that I saw yesterday on Cannelle et Vanille - a Chocolate Tahini Tart. With no tahini on hand, I decided to go for a simple, yet decadent Chocolate Mousse Tart. 

Putting this together was such a breeze. The tart crust was easy to handle and I got one of my prettiest tart crust ever made! No fuss at all. However, I'm not a big fan of this crust as it's a little dry for my liking. I'd opt for Dorie Greenspan's trusty recipe or Pierre Herme's chocolate pate sablee anytime.



The mousse was a simple blend of whipped cream with melted chocolate - easy and foolproof. I still love my mousse with egg yolks in this but the simplicity of this recipe rocks. Haha.

For the recipe, head to Aran's blog here.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Earl Grey Milk Chocolate and Mocha Kahlua Macarons

A trip to Antoinette inspired me to make my own batch of macarons. I simply adore that place, its chic yet homely French decor...and its colourful array of desserts. Its well made macarons - smooth, pristine shells with sweet, flavourful fillings...I can still remember how it's Earl Grey Milk Chocolate flavour tasted with its raspberry centre. So good that I wish I can replicate the same flavour at home :).

When inspiration comes, the best thing to do with it is to bake with the flow. I decided to make a batch of 2 flavours - Earl Grey Milk Chocolate and Mocha Kahlua. I went with the flow and decided on the proportion of the flavourings in an instant, without putting too much thought into it. And guess what, this eventually yielded one of my most successful macaron batches ever.

Taking into account my previous experience with using Twinings earl grey tea in baked items, I bumped up the flavour in the macarons by using 3 full tea bags in the shells...to the point where I can smell the prominent earl grey scent even prior to baking them. The cream for the milk chocolate ganache was infused with another 3 tea bags, before mixing it into a ganache. Eventually, the earl grey flavour was very prominent, though I felt it could do with a little bit more balance and a softer texture. I'd be sure to increase the proportion of cream to milk chocolate the next time round.

Earl Grey Milk Chocolate Macarons

The second flavour is inspired by the new bottle of Kahlua my brother got me earlier last month. And I thought, how nice it would be to have Kahlua in my macaron fillings! I stumbled upon this lovely recipe for Mocha Kahlua Buttercream and decided to give it a good shot. This eventually turned out to be absolutely delicious! Imagine chewy dark chocolate macarons shells sandwiching a light coffee cocoa flavoured buttercream with a hint of Kahlua. Given another chance, I would add a tsp more Kahlua so that the liquor flavour is more prominent. But nevertheless, this was an instant hit with everyone who tried it :).

Mocha Kahlua Macarons

Yummy! I love both these flavours tremendously. Pretty sure I'll be repeating these flavours in the days to come, possibly with one or two minor tweaks to the recipe combination. Alright, I shall leave you with a final image of the macarons' innards.

Enjoy!

Macaron innards