A Feature in Heart Home Magazine

I mentioned in one of my last posts that I was asked to contribute an article to a soon-to-be launched interiors magazine Heart Home Mag. Well, it's just been launched! And it looks amazing, there's so much great content by the creative community gathered by the founders Arianna, Carole and Daniel. I'm so honoured to be part of this inaugural issue!

The feature I contributed is of course one on food. I made, styled and shot the summer berry tarts and also various flavours of fromage blanc ice cream. The shoot was inspired by an artist's atelier. I wanted to highlight the vibrant colours of the berries and to make the food look like edible paintings.


I've posted my favourite shots that I styled and took here, as not all pictures could be included in the post. The recipes on how to make the tarts and a fromage blanc ice cream is over on Heart Home. Do go over to  Heart Home Mag and have a read!

Pandan Chiffon Cake - Food for Angels & Babes

For the longest time, I've been trying to perfect a decent rendition of a pandan chiffon cake. A chiffon cake is akin to angel's food cake, except it also has egg yolks to make the taste a little richer, but uses oil instead of butter to maintain that soft spongey texture. Pandan chiffon cake is common in Singapore and Malaysia, sold in most bakeries and eaten commonly as teatime snacks.

To me, the perfect pandan chiffon cake would have to be very light (almost cotton candy like), have an airy crumb (tender but stretchy, so not too cake-like), rise evenly without cracks or doming, fragrant, the colour of light jade not psychedelic neon green (some store bought ones blind me!), have an even brown (but not burnt) crust and of course taste yummy!



This is by no means an easy feat and I was on a pandan cake baking obsession for about a month, making cake after cake, trying out various recipes and tweaking them. Friends benefited from my endeavour, as I would dole out pandan cake weekly. Two of my friends' toddlers really liked the pandan cake, finishing up an entire slice on their own, as it was so light and soft (and probably sweet). I think babies are very discerning eaters, hence I declared the resulting recipe a success :) It also fulfilled most of my criteria above, except that it rises quite a bit and ends up doming and cracking.



Nonetheless, it's as close to perfect as I can get it. I started out looking at various recipes on the internet, which included those on Rose's Kitchen, Aunty Yochana, Baking Mum and ieatishootipost. Out of these recipes, the one that was closest to what I was after was the one on ieatishootipost plus there was a great deal of exposition and analysis on what makes a pandan cake tick on Dr Tay's website. One problem that I found across the recipes, was the differing pan sizes, which greatly affected the volume of batter as well as the baking time and temperature. Dr Tay's recipe was a whopping 9 egg whites (and 6 egg yolks) and was meant for a 25cm (10inch) tube pan. I only had a 21cm pan and where eggs are involved, it's a little harder to just scale proportionally down. As a result, I tweaked the proportions and came up with a texture I really liked, even though I still had a bit too much for my small pan. Perhaps I should just buy a bigger one!

Here's the final recipe that I came up with. I've rewritten it in the way I feel makes most logical sense to me in terms of the mise-en-place and sequence. It would probably fit a 23cm (9 inch) tube pan nicely, but if like me you have a smaller pan, just bake off the rest in a small tin. Never waste :)



Pandan Chiffon Cake (makes a 23cm/9inch cake)

(recipe adapted from ieatishootipost)

9 pandan leaves
2.5 tbsp (~40ml) coconut milk

90ml corn oil
120ml coconut milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp pandan paste (I try to add as little as possible as it makes the batter very green)

160g cake/pastry flour (I substituted with 120g plain flour and 40g corn flour)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder (can be omitted)

5 egg yolks (I use large eggs)
70g caster sugar

7 egg whites (I use large eggs)
80g caster sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat an oven to 170deg C (I used mine on fan mode, if you have a regular oven, I think you can set your temperature to 180deg C).

1. To obtain pandan juice:
Cut the pandan leaves into pieces into a food processor. Add the coconut milk and blend until leaves are shredded. Squeeze and strain mixture through a muslin cloth to obtain all the liquid. You should get about 2 tbsp of pandan juice from this.

2. Mix corn oil, coconut milk, vanilla essence, pandan paste and the pandan juice together and stir evenly through. Set aside.

3. In a mixing bowl, measure out the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

4. In another mixing bowl, whip the egg yolks and 70g sugar together until pale and yellow. Pour in the liquid coconut and pandan mixture and whip until incorporated.

5. Sift the dry flour mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Whip on medium speed until incorporated and batter is smooth. Set aside.

6. Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites and whip until foamy. Add one-third of the remaining 80g of sugar and continue whipping. Gradually add the rest of the sugar in 2 stages until the whites are whipped to stiff peaks.

7. Add one-third of the whites to the batter and gently fold in with a spatula. (To make it easier to fold in, you may add a small amount of whites to the batter and mix it quite roughly to even out the texture before folding in the rest of the whites more gently). Continue to add the remaining whites in 2 stages until you get a light, foamy batter. Make sure to smooth out any meringue lumps.

8. Pour the batter into the tube pan, making sure there are no large air bubbles trapped in the batter (if not, you will get a large hole in your cake!). Tap the bottom of your pan to ensure all air bubbles are expelled.

9. Bake for 45-50 minutes in a 170deg oven for 20 minutes, then lower it to 160deg for the remaining time until a skewer comes out clean when inserted and the top crust is a nice golden brown. If it browns too much or you realise there's a thick crust, you're cooking it for too long and the oven temperature may be too hot.

10. Once cooked, take it out and cool it inverted to let the cake structure continue to elongate (instead of sinking). If your pan has 'legs' for it to balance upside down, great. If not, I always stick mine on top of a funnel. When it's cooled, run a knife or spatula around the edges of the pan to loosen it and unmould.

*edited 2 Feb

Guest Post On Notabilia - Pandan Kaya Cake

One of my lovely classmates from the Blogging Your Way course invited me to do a guest post on her newly inaugurated blog Notabilia, and of course I said yes! She has recently moved from New York to Singapore and Notabilia is about her experience as an expat discovering Singapore, focusing on her interests in arts, culture, crafts, design etc. She has just launched her series Cooking With... and I'm glad to be the first one featured :) I shared a recipe for Pandan Kaya Cake, which is a cake you can find in local Singapore bakeries. Enough from me, go over to my guest post on Notabilia and read more!

I'm now back in Singapore for a month, and have an epic list of things to eat, see, do during my time here (for both work and holiday) that I would like to complete. Already I've had a very good meal at Les Amis, which I will blog about soon and have a couple more good restaurants lined up to check out. Definitely looking forward to catching up with friends and family as well. Stay tuned to this space as I bring you the curated version of my Singapore :)

Matcha Green Tea Sablés and Japanese Bakeries

I've been baking a lot this past week, and mainly green things for some bizarre reason, matcha (green tea) chiffon roll, matcha sables and also pandan cake. Matcha, a type of Japanese green tea, is a wonderful flavour that pairs really well with red bean and or black sesame, as many Japanese sweets and desserts attest to. The rich fragrant aroma and the bittersweet aftertaste of matcha lends itself well to most sweet endings - cakes, cookies, ice-cream, macarons, crème brûlée and the list goes on.



One of my go-to books for desserts is this Japanese pastry & dessert cookbook Okashi by Keiko Ishida. There are many basic recipes covered in the book such as different types of sponges, pastry creams and custards in addition to Japanese-style french pastries. What I love about the Japanese renditions are the delicateness and subtlety that Japanese bakers bring to the richer and heavier french cousins. And of course the infusion of traditional Japanese flavours like sesame, soy, red bean and of course the ubiquitous matcha green tea. The cakes are always oh-so-light, melt-in-your-mouth texture and you can always tell it's made with such care and precision.

To satisfy my Japanese pastry craving, I made the matcha chiffon roll with red bean paste from the Okashi book but it didn't last long enough (all eaten up!) for me to photograph haha. I usually bake at night, which means I don't have good natural lighting for shooting (using artificial lighting and shooting at night is something I definitely need to learn more about!). Being too lazy to recreate it again, I decided to try something new out of the book, and decided to pick the matcha green tea sablés cookies since they looked pretty easy. They turned out pretty well and were quite addictive, I kept reaching for more and more! The recipe is posted below after the post, with some of my comments in italics.





I would also like to share with you some of my favourite Japanese bakeries. k-ki at Ann Siang Hill is one of my favourites, helmed by Japan-trained Singaporean pastry chef Kenneth Seah and his wife Delphine. They don't make large quantities of their cakes and the popular ones are often sold out before the end of the day. The Mont Blanc and Strawberry Tart are to die for! Another great bakery is Pâtisserie Glacé, which has amazing cheese tarts and strawberry shortcakes. It started out of a small shop in a quiet spot, but has since located to a bustling location in Icon at Tanjong Pagar. Both these bakeries are in Singapore and located within walking distance of my house, lucky me!

To get my fix here in London, William Curley (again walking distance to me, yay!) does a good Mont Blanc, and selection of green tea flavoured desserts as well, since his wife Suzue Curley is a Japanese pastry chef. I recently discovered Lanka at Primrose Hill,where I met up with Pleasure Monger and Going With My Gut. It serves up pretty decent Japanese cakes and French food as well. Sadly, I've never visited Japan, where I'm sure my heart (and stomach) will not be able to withstand the temptation and lure of the great Japanese pastries and food. That is definitely one trip I'll need to make in the near future. But till then, I'll just have to contend with indulging myself with the yummies from the above bakeries and making my own!



Green Tea Sablés
(from Okashi by Keiko Ishida)

240g pastry flour (I substituted this with 200g plain flour and 40g corn flour)
15g green tea powder
150g unsalted butter, room temperature
130g icing sugar
pinch of salt
2 egg yolks
1 egg white
40g granulated sugar
green tea leaves (or black sesame seeds), optional

Sift flour and green tea powder twice. Set aside.
(I measured out the flours and green tea powder in a big bowl and then sifted it onto parchment paper, and then re-sifted back into the bowl)

Beat butter, icing sugar and salt until soft and creamy. Add egg yolks and mix well. Add flour and green tea powder mixture and fold in with a spatula. Cover dough with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for about 15 minutes.
(I used the paddle attachment on my stand mixer to do the above mixing. The refrigeration is to harden the dough, as the butter might have become soft after all the handling/beating)

Take out dough from fridge and divide in half. Shape into logs about 3.5cm in diameter. Wrap the logs in parchment and refrigerate until firm. If not using immediately, wrap with cling film and freeze. Cookie dough can be kept for up to 2 months in the freezer.

Preheat oven to 150 deg Celsius. When dough is firm, cut logs into 7mm thick rounds. Dip edges in granulated sugar.
(I found it easier to coat the logs with sugar first, then to cut them. I also made several logs instead of 2 long logs as my dough kept breaking apart)

Place cookies on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush a little egg white over the cookies and scatter a few green tea leaves on top if desired.
(I used black sesame seeds instead as I didn't have green tea leaves)

Bake for about 25 minutes, then remove and leave to cool on wire rack before serving. Store cookies in airtight container at room temperature for up to 10 days.

Mactweets Mac Attack 12 Challenge - Fig and Mascarpone Macarons

Once again, it's Mactweets Mac Attack time! This month, the theme is Pinkarons for Pinktober Challenge in honour of Breast Cancer Awareness month in October. After a long hiatus (I can't even remember when was the last time I made macarons), I am finally getting my act together and rejoining the Mac Madness, with some gentle prodding from the lovely Jamie over at Life's A Feast :)

Inspired by my recent trip to Marrakech and the wonderfully bright coloured decorative items such as lamps, glassware, carpets, ceramics etc, I decided to make macarons in various shades of pink and fill them with a fig and mascarpone cream. The styling for the photos were also inspired by the celebration of all things feminine so I decided to shoot the macarons as if they were precious gems in a jewellery collection. A little unusual, but I was pleased with the results. I'd like to think of these macarons as Jewels of Marrakech... I'm thinking of submitting some of my pics to Foodgawker or Tastespotting (never done so before!) but I've heard that it needs to cropped in a certain way, sharp, whitish, etc. This set of pics are pretty much close-up and composed for portrait orientation (as opposed to the square pics foodgawker looks for) so I might have to go search through my discarded shots. Anyway, in the meantime, it's all just for you guys!







I used my usual recipe for macarons, except that I divided the batter and coloured them 3 different shades of pink.

Macaron Shells (makes about 50-54 shells)
recipe adapted from Cannelle & Vanille

100g egg whites, aged
3g egg white powder
130g almond flour (blitz in food processor to get a finer texture)
160g icing sugar
55g castor sugar
pink gel food colouring


Sift icing sugar and processed almond flour together in a bowl. Set aside.

Mix egg whites with egg white powder and whisk in electric mixer until soft peaks on medium high speed.

Lower speed on electric mixer and add in castor sugar slowly while still whisking until fully incorporated. Continue whisking on medium high speed until your egg white meringue mixture reaches stiff peak stage.

Fold in 1/3 of dry ingredients (icing sugar + almond flour) into meringue with a spatula gently. Add in 1/3 more and fold again before mixing in the last 1/3 of the dry ingredients. Make sure all dry ingredients are incorporated into the meringue and start folding mixture more vigorously to form a shiny batter with the consistency of flowing magma or drips down like ribbons when you lift the batter up and let it drip down, and it should slowly disappear into itself without leaving a peak. Be careful not to over mix. If you are adding colour, add it just after all dry ingredients have been incorporated and before working the mixture into a shiny mass. (I divided the batter when the dry and wet ingredients were roughly incorporated, and then added food colouring to each batch before working it more vigorously to get to the flowing magma stage.)

Line 2 baking trays with non-stick parchment paper (or silpat). You can stick it down with bits of batter in the four corners.

Fill a piping bag fitted with a 1cm round tip with the batter, and pipe even rounds of batter, about 3cm across, onto the tray. If you've mixed the batter properly, it should not spread flatly out too much (overmixed) or leave a peak (undermixed)

Let the batter dry for about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 170 deg C (convection oven or 180 dec C if conventional oven).

When batter is dry to touch (it forms a slight crust), turn the oven down to 140 deg C (or 150 deg C for conventional oven) and bake shells for 14-15 min, turning the trays halfway through baking.

After baking, lift parchment onto wire rack to let shells cool and gently unmould when cool.



Fig & Mascarpone Cream Filling

6 ripe figs
3 tbsp brown sugar
40ml water
120g mascarpone cheese
50ml single cream

Quarter the figs and remove the skins.

Simmer the brown sugar, water and figs in a saucepan over medium to low heat, stirring occasionally and making sure it does not burn.

When the figs look like they have broken down, and the mixture is reduced to a thick almost jam-like consistency, take it off the heat and cool to room temperature.

Whisk the mascarpone cheese and cream together until stiff peaks.

Fold in the cooled fig jam into the cream.

Fill cream into piping bag fitted with 1cm round tip.

Assembly

Match pairs of shells of even size.

Pipe a small mound of cream filling onto one half of each pair of shells.

Top with the other shell.

Long Awaited Tiramisu!

Now that I'm back in London, I'm finally getting around to clearing my backlog of posts. First up, the Tiramisu recipe that I promised.

I was looking at the stuff in my fridge just before I  left for Singapore and realised most of the perishables, which I would have otherwise thrown away, could make me a tiramisu! Or rather, I could make one with them. Now, I've not made a tiramisu in ages and I remember poring through a ton of recipes the last round before I adapted a few to my liking. Being a purist, I don't like the recipes that simply call for whipping mascarpone and/or cream together for the filling. Real tiramisu filling should be lightened with beaten egg whites and egg yolks. I do, however, condone the use of store-bought lady's fingers though to be honest, I don't like the orangey-vanilla taste that most lady's fingers have. I find that it distracts from the coffee and chocolatey goodness.

Anyway, I didn't have any lady's fingers but I did have a ton of eggs (which were meant for my Big Macaron Experiment which has still not been carried out) that were calling out to be used. So I decided to make my own sponge. This sponge is from my Christophe Felder's patisserie book (adapted recipe reproduced below) and it really soaked up the coffee well. Since I had creme fraiche in the fridge instead of cream, I used that instead and it didn't detract very much from the taste (and teeny weeny bit healthier than double cream).



Tiramisu 
makes approximately a 6x8 inch container or 2 5x5inch
The recipe below

Biscuit Sponge (adapted from Christophe Felder's recipe)

3 egg whites (approx 100g)
3 egg yolks (approx 60g)
80g caster sugar
75g flour

Filling
2 egg whites (approx 67g)
2 egg yolks (approx 40g)
60g (for egg whites) + 30g (for egg yolks) caster sugar
250g mascarpone cheese
180g creme fraiche
1 cup coffee
cocoa powder

The recipe below combines some of the steps to minimise the work but if you're using store bought lady's fingers, make sure the quantity of meringue you are making is just for the filling.

Sponge

Preheat oven to 180 C.

Beat all 5 egg whites in stand mixer till soft peaks, adding 140g sugar in batches while continuing to whisk until stiff peaks. This should yield 280g of meringue (I don't know where the 30g of ingredients went to!). Separate into 2 portions - one 170g (three-fifths) and the other 110g (two-fifths), the latter kept in the fridge until you need to make the filling.

Add 3 egg yolks into the 170g of meringue and whisk on high speed for 5 sec to incorporate.

Fold in the sifted flour gently into the mixture.

Spread onto tray, making sure you will be able to cut out 2 layers for the size of your container afterwards.

Bake at 180 C for 13-14 min, turning the tray about halfway through.

Let cool on rack.

Filling

Whisk 2 egg yolks with 30g of sugar in a bowl set above a pot of simmering water on the stove (bain marie) until it is pale yellow and forms ribbons.

Beat the mascarpone with the creme fraiche in a stand mixer until well incorporated.

Add the egg yolk mixture into the mascarpone mixture and whisk until well incorporated.

Take out the meringue that was made earlier for the filling or make the meringue mixture now if you did not make the sponge. Fold it gently into the mascarpone mixture.

Assembly

Cut the sponge into 2 equal pieces that fits your container, or cut out small pieces for individual portions with 2 layers.

Lay the first layer in your container. Brush the sponge liberally with coffee. Dust with cocoa powder.

Spread half of the filling on top of the first layer.

Place the second layer on top of the filling. Brush liberally with coffee.

Spread the remainder of the filling on top of the second layer and then dust with cocoa powder.

Let it set in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Mango & Lychee Mousse Macarons - Mactweets Challenge 3

This post has been a long time coming. While I made the macarons quite a few days ago, I haven't had the time to photograph them in natural daylight as I'm always rushing to work in the morning and there's hardly been any sun. Finally I manage to sneak a few minutes yesterday morning, despite it being a really really gloomy and grey day.



The Mactweets Macattack Challenge 3 hosted by Jamie and Deeba was to make macarons with a new element that you've never attempted before. And frankly, I have been reaching some sort of plateau in my macaron making in terms of flavours and base recipes. I always use my usual recipe adapted from Cannelle et Vanille's basic recipe (but as I mentioned in the previous post, I've been having a bit of problems with the texture) and usually I make a ganache filling. So in line with the challenge, I decided to do two things new - first, the colour of the macarons. I've never made aqua (turquoise, tiffany blue, duck egg blue?) macarons before despite it being my favourite colour :) so I decided to colour my shells a pretty aqua (but it turned out a little stronger than I would have liked). Second new thing was the mousse filling. I knew I wanted something pastel and light to go with the aqua shells and I had some mango and lychees lying around so I decided to make mango-flavoured and lychee-flavoured mousse as fillings. Yes, two different types, one light yellow and one light pink.



I did some research online and flipped through some cookbooks and came up with a basic recipe as below:

Lychee/Mango Mousse
(one portion makes enough to fill 20-24 macarons)
140g lychee or mango puree
20g castor sugar (you can add more if your puree is sour like my mango was, so I used 30g)
100ml double cream
1 sheet of gelatine (2.5-3g)

Soak the gelatine sheet in ice cold water.
Whip the double cream to stiff peaks.
Add the sugar to the fruit puree in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to ensure there's no burning. Once it boils, turn the heat off.
Squeeze the water out of the gelatine and add it to the warm puree mixture and let it dissolve. If you're colouring your puree, add it at this point (I added a tiny drop of pink colouring to my lychee one). Let it cool to room temperature.
Add the cooled puree to the whipped cream and gently fold to incorporate together.
Put in the fridge to set a little before filling piping bag to fill the macarons (or put into little cups for mousse treat!)

As you can see from my pictures, I had a lot of mousse leftover and so I made a layered lychee and mango mousse verrine, topped with ground pistachio. I should have piped a lot more filling into my macarons but it was a little runny when I was piping them so I didn't want to risk it overflowing. It did set once I put it into the fridge so I think next time I'll put more. The mousse filling was very light and actually didn't make for a very strong tasting filling (unlike a ganache). My macaron shells were also softer than usual, as I have mentioned in great lengths in my previous post, so I will be embarking on some sort of macaron texture experiment in the near future (once I find time!) so look out for it!

Chewy or Moist Macarons?

I'm getting obsessed with the texture of my macarons. I made some macarons with mango and lychee mousse filling for the Mactweets challenge and they were quite soft. Basically my macarons used to be pretty chewy and I was trying to figure out how to get them more moist and soft and now they're TOO soft and almost falls apart when you bite into them. For the life of me, I can't figure out the changes I did other than always trying to lower the sugar content, changing ovens (since I moved), or maybe it's just English eggs!

Ok, let's take them one by one. I think the most consistent thing I've been trying to do is to lower the sugar content. I started baking using the basic recipe at Syrup and Tang though I can't remember which one but I think the ratio of egg white : almond : castor sugar : icing sugar was 1: 1.25 : 2.3 : 0.3. This meant that the total sugar content was 2.6x of the egg whites. I found that too sweet and now I use a basic recipe which is 1 : 1.3 : 1.7 : 0.5 which is a total sugar content of 2.2x. So is sugar the main determinant of how chewy or moist the macaron is? Since a macaron shell is basically a meringue with ground almonds, i.e. a meringue with less sugar will result in a less stable and softer meringue as opposed to one with more sugar. With less sugar content in my macarons, I was weakening my meringue structure, resulting in a softer shell. Does the type of sugar and the proportion matter? Perhaps I should be using more castor sugar in whipping the meringue and reduce the icing sugar, thereby keeping overall sugar content the same but with a stronger meringue for a harder finished product.

However, there are a couple of other observations I made - when they come out of the oven and are still fresh, the shells are chewy. Even after a day in the fridge (plain shells sans filling) they are still chewy (too chewy in fact). It is only after I fill them, stick them in the fridge to rest, take them out and bring to room temperature that they start softening. Now what does this mean? Perhaps it is the moisture in the filling that is the main cause of the softening of the shells? But then again, previously I did the same (fill them and let them rest) and they were chewy.

Or could it be the oven temperature and cooking time? According to Syrup and Tang, a too chewy macaron is the result of overbaking (too long or too hot), which means I might be underbaking my macarons currently (@135C/convection or 150C/convention for 14 min). Or it could be just the macaronage (mixing method), or too little almond meal. The variations are endless!

This is why I'm obsessed and going nuts. If anyone knows why macarons are chewy/moist, let me know. I'm going to have to experiment much more but it's so much effort making multiple batches! Going macaloon-y!

Going Home!

Wheeeeee!! I'm finally going home tomorrow! Can't wait. I only hope the snow doesn't stop transport and flights :( Usually I'd be happy to see snow but today as the flurries got heavier and heavier, my heart was sinking lower and lower, what with all the warnings for a snow storm (by london standards) overnight. Praying very hard.

Can't wait to get back home and eat more goodies, see all my friends and family and relax a little, as well as catch up on all the backlog of posts! Yes, yes, there's so much backlog, I've uploaded my pics already so all I need to do is WRITE! Lots of food from Eugene's Leaving Eating Marathon. Akan datang (coming soon)!Now I leave you with the Red Velvet cupcakes (using Hummingbird Bakery cookbook's recipe) that I made as my last bake in London for the year! They were really very red this time since I added a lot of red food colouring (though still less than what they stated in the book) and didn't taste as chocolatey as it did the last time I made them. Need to try again. I also really need to figure out how to get a nice lighting at home since I'm always shooting at night.

Raspberry White Chocolate Macarons

In my last post, I mentioned I made macarons last weekend as well. Was saving the pics for a stand-alone entry on them :) I bought a punnet of raspberries and decided to put them to use in my Raspberry White Chocolate Macarons as part of the Mactweets challenge that Jamie of Life's A Feast and Deeba of Passionate About Baking are hosting. Seeing I haven't taken pictures of any macs I made in a while, I decided to use this opportunity to motivate my lazy self.

I used the trusty recipe from Cannelle et Vanille to make the macaron shells and made a basic white chocolate ganache (1 part cream, 2 parts white chocolate) and added some raspberry puree. I also added a small piece of raspberry in the centre to enhance the fruit flavour.



I was happy with this batch of macaron though there was some air pockets in some of the shells (think I overcooked them and the meringue fell) but it wasn't that noticeable. They got pretty good reviews from the people I gave them to, which means this flavour is a keeper like my Chocolate Peanut Butter & Banana one.

Lots of Cooking

Last weekend was a weekend filled with cooking and baking. I stayed at home and made scones, bread, shepherd's pie, mac & cheese, macarons and creme brulee. Unfortunately I was too lazy to take photos of everything. So here's a selection.


I made matcha (green tea) creme brulee with the egg yolks left from using the whites for the macarons. It's a really simple recipe that I've adapted from various recipes in books and on the net.

Basic Creme Brulee Recipe
(you can just proportionally adjust the recipe)

2 egg yolks
24g granulated sugar
200ml cream
1tsp vanilla extract (or substitute other flavourings)

Preheat oven to 150 deg C.

Whisk egg yolks with sugar until thick and pale.
Heat up cream over stove to a simmer. Add the vanilla essence (or other flavouring) to the cream. Turn off the heat once you see small bubbles, be careful not to burn the cream. Let the cream cool.
When the cream is cool enough to touch, slowly temper it into the egg yolk mixture, adding it little by little so as to not cook the eggs.
Strain the mixture and pour it into 2 ramekins (or 3 if you prefer smaller portions).
Place the ramekins into a deep oven-proof dish and pour boiling water into the dish until halfway up the ramekins to create a bain-marie.
Bake until the side is set but the centre jiggles when you use a tong to shake it, about 20-25 min.

You can use experiment and flavour the creme brulee with different things, like steeping an Earl Grey teabag into the heating cream to infuse Earl Grey flavour, or 1 tsp of green tea powder like I did. If you other pretty teacups or shallow bowls (make sure they are oven proof!), you can also use it in place of the usual ramekins. Just make sure you adjust the cooking time accordingly.



The mushroom risotto in the picture above was somewhat of a disaster because instead of adding white wine, I added white wine vinegar!!! The two bottles were next to each other in my drawer. I was horrified when I smelt the sour smell and realised I made the mistake, I was completely not thinking. Luckily I didn't add all THAT much but it was enough damage. In order to repair it, I added some sugar to counter the sourish taste, and then after some 911 searching on the net, I decided to add baking soda to neutralise the acid. I wouldn't say it completely got rid of the vinegarish taste but at least it was edible. Sigh, next time I'll pay a lot more attention when I'm cooking. The other dish is a Truffle Mac & Cheese, though the truffle oil wasn't strong enough. I also tried the Shepherd's Pie recipe from Gordon Ramsay's Cooking For Friends and it turned out pretty well. Didn't take any pictures of it but maybe when I unfreeze another portion to cook, I will.

And the below is my loot of cookbooks (and other books) that came from Amazon! Yay! Can't wait to try it out...

Lazy

I've been quite lazy about taking photos, even of things I make. I made my first ever batch of macarons in London last week (or rather almost 2 weeks ago), and I didn't take a single picture :( Lazy to style, lazy to even pick up a camera. I blame it on the bad lighting and darkness prevalent for most of the time.

Anyway, I made 3 flavours - chocolate peanut butter banana, matcha buttercream and salted caramel. The first two turned out well but I went a little overboard with the fleur de sel in the caramel. Need some inspiration for new flavours.




But I did manage to get a picture of the cupcakes I made last weekend. An attempt at red velvet but they weren't very red at all despite copious amounts of red colouring. I really didn't want to put anymore. I did take a picture though but it was just hurriedly taken, no natural light (there is really very little light in this place bah) and little styling. The other prettier dessert was store-bought from the William Curley cafe that just opened near my place. It's supposedly Britain's best chocolatier - artisan chocs and very pretty desserts. It's a husband and wife team, both patissiers and the wife is Japanese so there's lots of cool jap flavours like sesame and green tea as well. Will find some time to go hang out there.

Now that I have a bit of free time with no plans today and this weekend, I am at a loss of what to do. Guess time to catch up on sleep and get well.

The Return of the Macaron Chronicles

Finally the macaron gods have smiled on me and I am in their favour again. Or perhaps it was the beginner's luck of the new Kitchenaid. Whatever it is, I finally succeeded at making macarons after 2 previous failed attempts. And this time, the flavour was a big hit! Chocolate Peanut Butter & Banana :) If I were ever going to make macarons for sale, I'd definitely include this! Once again, I shall let the pictures do the talking (courtesy of my new Canon 500D).

Candy Bar, Strawberry Cake & A Dead Mixer

Apologies for the lack of posting. It's been pretty hectic the past few weeks with work and friends' weddings. Just this past Friday was Miss Ene's wedding and I was pretty tied up helping out as a jiemei and general planning. It was a great wedding and there were lots of fun moments! The full set of pics that I took are over on Facebook for those who are on my FB. Pulled out the below photos of the candy bar that I designed and set up for the happy couple :) I'm glad to see that people enjoyed it and there was hardly any candy leftover. Lots of kids on sugar high that night!

Finally got round to baking today. If you haven't noticed, yes I haven't made macarons in a while, nor even baked. I had wanted to make macarons but alas, once again the macaron gods are not in my favour. As I was separating the eggs last night, the stupid yolks slipped into the whites, which meant that the whites were tainted and won't whip well. I decided to just mix the yolks with the whites and find something else that will use whole eggs instead.

Inspired by the Patisserie Glace Strawberry Shortcake I had yesterday, I decided to do a strawberry cake. By the way, for those who've not gone to Patisserie Glace at Chinatown Plaza, you must!! It's got really yummy cakes! Anyway, so I bought some strawberries and attempted my very first layer cake. It was a good excuse to finally use the cake ring I bought.

I couldn't find a light strawberry sponge cake recipe that used whole eggs, since most of them called for beating the egg whites and yolks separately to maximise the volume of the cake. So I decided to just go with a Victoria sponge recipe in my James Martin Desserts cookbook, which I suppose was just a pound cake recipe (i.e. equal parts of butter, eggs, sugar, flour). I then whipped some cream with icing sugar to make the filling and spread it over the strawberry quarters.

Pardon my lack of cake decorative talent. I did have slightly more creative ideas but I didn't have enough whipped cream leftover to pipe a mound to plonk my strawberries on so I had to just stick them right onto the cake. The cake itself was a bit too heavy for my liking (I'm still dreaming of the airy light sponge cake from Patisserie Glace) and whipped cream melts pretty fast. One more thing to master - a good light sponge cake.

Oh... and I had so much trouble creaming the cake batter and whipping the cream using my handheld food processor whisk attachment. Why? Cos my Kenwood mixer has DIED on me. It refuses to turn on. The last time I used it, I had to cajole it for 15 min before it started. This time, when I turned it on initially, I heard a whir for maybe ONE second and it died... Sigh. And the warranty is over since I got it just about over a year ago during my birthday. Bah. Maybe it's time to finally invest in a Kitchenaid. Guess I can't really make anything for now, let alone macs. Boohoo.

The Great Macaron Construction Adventures Part II (in pics)

As I mentioned, here are the pics from my last successful batch of macarons - Mango & Black Sesame flavours. Till the macaron gods smile on me again, savour these... was too lazy to set up nice backdrop...

The Great Macaron Construction Adventure Part I

Yes, yet another macaron post. I actually lost half of the post due to my fat fingers. Anyway no pics today cos it's only Part I.

Due to the broken state of the eggs I bought the other day, I was forced to crack them all and store them in bowls, for almost immediate usage. I used 4 eggs that very night to make a batch of simple Vanilla Cupcakes and separated the other 4 into whites and yolks for, you guessed it, macarons!

So thanks to the aged egg whites I now had on hand, I tried my hand at French meringue macaron shells last night. I made yellow and grey shells, can you guess what flavour I'll be attempting this round? The shells had good feet and rose quite nicely, although the shells came out rather large at 5cm instead of 4cm cos I was a tad over-zealous in piping them. They also were a bit burnt. I really need to work at lowering the temperature but still getting the bottoms dry somehow. Anyway, after they were done, I popped them into the freezer, awaiting Assembly Day.

Today I embarked on second part of my macaron construction adventure. Despite searching valiantly for a mango puree/compote recipe, I could not find a single satisfactory nor comprehensive one. Most just said to puree the mangoes - which I felt would be too watery. Others, if it called for cooking, was to make jam i.e. a lot of sugar involved.

So I decided to improvise and adapt a recipe from an apricot compote. I diced, sliced, and ate some, mango. Added sugar, lemon juice and stirred away by the stove. Lo and behold, it started thickening and coming together quite nicely. I resisted the temptation to experiment with the pectin that I had newly bought, as I didn't really want it to set like a jam/jelly. However, I added too much lemon (1 lemon instead of the half I originally used cos I didn't want to waste the other half) and it's a little more tart than I like it. Cooled it and then popped it into the fridge. Still thinking if I should add it to a whipped cream filling (lighter, not so sweet) or a buttercream (which version? American, French, Swiss or Italian??)

Tomorrow I shall endeavour to make the other filling flavour. I didn't manage to buy the
ingredient I needed so will have to improvise again. Stay tuned for The Great Macaron Construction Adventure Part II!

Pistachio Macarons

Made some more macarons tonight - pistachio ones. Shells came out well at 150C@14min. I managed to reduce the sugar amount as well so they're not so sweet. I followed Cannelle et Vanille's Pistachio Buttercream recipe to make my filling (by the way, I adore her blog, and am very inspired by her photos and recipes!) which turned out a bit soft. That's my problem with buttercream always, it being soft at room temperature. I stuck it into the fridge to set, but how am I going to bring it around?

Macarons Galore!

Was quite domesticated over the weekend - went to buy flowers to beautify the house and continued experimenting with macarons.

I went to Far East Flora to do a spot of flower shopping after having not gone there since the last events I did in Dec. I wanted to get some nice spring flowers since Mar 20 is supposedly the first day of spring. After looking at the rather dismal selection at Far East, I finally settled on some of my favourite ranunculus in orange and canary yellow tulips. Bought some assorted wild flowers for fillers, and added on some more creamy yellow ranunculus that I came across later. I also bought some alliums, which are those round ball flowers with long thick stalks, but don't have a photo as they're still blooming into their full round glory. Boy do they smell strongly of onions!

Oh, and I also bought a rosemary plant. This is the first time I'm attempting to keep a plant, and I thought what better plants than herbs? My hoarding collecting compulsive nature told me to buy a bunch of different plants (they had lavendar, basil, mint, thyme etc) but I checked myself and decided that I should see how the rosemary works out for me. Well, after 4 days, it's still alive, yay! But I haven't used it yet. I wonder how I should cut the sprigs? If I cut it off at the top will it grow back? Hmm.

Next up, I attempted another batch of macarons. This time, I decided to have fruit-flavoured ganache. I settled on the combinations of strawberry + white chocolate and my fave banana + chocolate, and correspondingly the pink and yellow colours :) Since my last attempt at the Italian meringue method was not very successful, I decided to persevere in my determination to master it. And of course, having bought a small saucepan and candy thermometer to boil sugar syrup, I must make full use of it! My brand new food processor was also finally taken out from its box and made to do some work - first to grind the tant-pour-tant and then to puree the fruit.

Firstly, the macaron shells. I think I overmixed it during the macaronage as the batter spread a little bit more than I liked, hence I ended up with quite big macaron shells. Or it could also be due to my bad estimation per blob of batter. However, my sizing was at least more consistent this time so I had consistently big shells that at least matched each other (important for sandwiching). The batter was also a bit too sweet for my liking, as the italian meringue sure had a lot of sugar syrup. It might also be that I overcooked the syrup. Whatever it is, I'm not sure if it would break the recipe if I lower the sugar content.

After piping the shells and letting them rest to dry, I baked 3 batches of macarons using 3 different oven settings. The last time my shells were undercooked (or too much sugar) which resulted in them sticking to the paper and being annoyingly hard to peel off. This time, I baked at 150C convection for 13 min, 150C convection for 15 min, and 160C conventional for 15 min. For the convection settings, I pre-heated the oven at 180C first before lowering it. I was doing extensive research on the net prior to baking to determine the best settings but alas, oven temperatures and settings are just so temperamental (pardon the pun!) and everyone seemed to have their own little trick like pre-heating at high temps, or sticking a wooden spoon to keep the door ajar etc. I gave up and decided to just experiment. Both the 150C@13 min and 160C@15 min gave me similar results although the 13 min one was a little bit sticky still. at 150C@15 min it was dry, but the shells were a bit burnt. I like the idea of convection setting so I think I'll try 150C@14 min or 140C@15 min next time.

And then the fillings. I followed the recipe for a basic ganache i.e. equal parts of chocolate and cream (but I didn't add butter) and added pureed fruit to it. For the white chocolate though, because of the high cocoa butter content, I used much less cream. The trick is to get a thick enough consistency to pipe when set. While my consistency was more or less ok, the fruit flavourings were not meant to be. Despite adding more fruit than was called for in the recipe I was following, neither the strawberry nor banana came out strongly in the ganaches, with the taste being overwhelmingly chocolate. I think next time I will add fruit flavour to bring out the real fruit. Or not do ganaches. Ahh, so many new permutations.

Since this foray was quite successful, I will go back to the french meringue method to see if that can be made less sweet. And of course experiment with oven temperatures, and new filling flavours. Till the next time (I wonder when that will be?), I leave you with these pretty pictures.