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

Fruit Rouges

On one of the rare days I have a day off, I decided to bake a cake...a REAL cake. Meaning, with layers and frosting and all. After 2 months of time-strapped baking, I can finally devote half a day completely to baking a good cake.

I've been eyeing this Fruit Rouges recipe by Hidemi Sugino for the longest time but haven't gone on to make it as the fruit puree I was eyeing was pretty expensive in my opinion. But thanks to my darling, who gave me some vouchers to spend at the baking supplies store, I get to buy a tub off the shelf without paying a single cent, weeee! Finally, I can bake this cake!

As you can see, my jaconde ended up plain as my attempt to pipe jam onto the jaconde batter failed terribly. The jam sunk into the cake and looked like deep slashes instead of pretty stripes. Anyone experienced the same problem? I gave up after a while and went with a foolproof plain jaconde instead. Nevertheless, the jaconde tastes really good! I'm amazed how it turned out even without using any oil or butter. It's one recipe for keeps!

Taste-wise, I love the tartness of the raspberry gelee and the mousse. As a result, the cake doesn't feel heavy at all...and I kept picking at the leftover pieces of the gelee as they were delicious! I'm not sure how this cake will go down with the men...but I'm pretty sure the ladies will love it...with the raspberries and pretty pink layers and all <3.

Since it's a ladies' cake, I packed one of these for my girlfriend in a simple white box decorated with pink ribbon. I hope she'll love this as much as I do :).