Blogshop...opened!

This may come as a surprise to some of you as it was for myself! I've finally decided to officially open a "blogshop" to take in orders officially after various e-mail enquiries.

I hope to be better organised and systematic as well as work to cater a larger crowd. So, having said that, I didn't realise what a special day it is today. 090909. With that said and with the official opening of my blogshop, I've decided to hold a mini promotion valid for a limited time!

Hop on over to check it out!

MORE macarons...

I love love love this picture! =DD BUT, i'm not the photographer. Remember my last macaron post, when I'm supposed to pass them to a friend? Well, those pink sweet things never quite got to where it was supposed to, so I made another batch, experimenting at the same time, since we had a dinner gathering last night! (phew! what a long sentence)

I started the day feeling a little lazy and eventually still got around making these little things. I didn't know where I got the courage from to venture into trying some new flavours other than my usual plain shells + chocolate ganache. So, I tried making some coffee flavoured shells by just adding 2g of instant coffee granules. I'm not sure if it was a mistake or a "blessing in disguise". I naive-ly thought the the granules would break up into powder form when I blended the nuts/sugar mixture, but not they didn't! I was looking for a slight brown tint from the coffee, but it never quite appeared as the granules refused to be grounded fine. And since it WAS intended to be an experiment, i continued. In my urgency to finish baking quickly, I decided to warm the egg whites which were taking forever to reach room temp. And stupid me warm them too long in the microwave and I got half-boiled egg whites. twice. So I finally got the hang of warming them after wasting 70g of egg whites.

So, being lazy, again, I'm still with the french method. Although it did cross my mind to try the italian one again, but the thought of boiling the sugar syrup, plus, a dinner appointment later in the evening kinda just made me blow that idea. So, it's still french. I can safely say I got the hang of whipping just 35g of egg white in my kitchenAid mixer pretty well =))

Surprise surprise! While folding the nut/sugar mixture into the whites, the nice pale brown i was looking for sufaced! While there were still some granules not broken down, they actually became quite a pretty sight with speckles of brown scattered randomly in the "macaron batter".

Since I was on a coffee theme, I decided to do "opera macarons". So I made a coffee swiss meringue buttercream and chocolate ganache. I piped a ring of coffee buttercream and filled the hole with dark chocolate ganche.

I'm glad it all went well and the shells were more "sturdy" this time though I didn't try out on myself personally. I've actually been trying to make heart-shaped macarons but sad to say, my piping is a little irregular and I always can't find a match size! So, no pics and no filling for those heart-shaped ones =(

Nonetheless, I really like that I've ventured into flavouring the macarons and hmmm maybe I'll try....hazelnut shells next?

imitation apple pie

Nope no mistake in the title. Imitation apple pie. I read Rei's latest post on Apple cinammon muffins and that sounded so tempting I couldn't resist not baking it. Moreover, D was all for it cos he lovessss cinnamon.

I just tried one (yes, that's why I'm getting fat) and it tasted like Mac D's apple pie minus the crunchy pie and apple sauce. The combination was superb and I liked how it wasn't too sweet without an overpowering scent of cinnamon.

I decided to "kill two birds with one stone" and halved the recipe and turning the other half into orange cinnamon muffins. I haven't tried the orange cinammon ones as D has packed them for his colleagues tomorrow. I managed to try the apple ones as we had extra batter for it, which meant we had extra muffins.

I omitted the ground nutmeg as I didn't have any on hand. Other than that, the recipe's a keeper =) oh! I also didn't have enough raisins, but the muffins still came out great!

I have been very much inspired by flickr contact RATUkek with all her cupcake flags/picks and very very very lovely packaging that I decided to make some muffin picks. Well, they can be used to tell the flavours apart too right? I love how the picks worked out on the muffins..I'm lovin them! =pp

For apple cinnamon muffins recipe, click here.

Orange Cinnamon Muffins (makes 6 muffins that are 5.5cm in diameter)

Dry Ingredients:
150g Plain Flour
1/2 Tbsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
75g Brown Sugar
20g Raisins
Grated orange zest (from 1 medium orange)

Wet Ingredients:
63g Butter, melted and cooled
1 egg (~50g), lightly beaten
93g milk
1/2 tsp orange oil

For the topping:
30g Plain Flour
1 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1/4 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
15g cold Butter, cut into small pieces

Method:

1) To prepare the toppings, in a bowl, add all dry ingredients and rub in butter till it resembles breadcrumbs. Alternatively, you can use a fork to break up the butter for you. Chill in the fridge for later use.

2) Preheat oven to 170°C. In a bowl, add flour, baking powder, cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder and brown sugar. Use a whisk to whisk the dry ingredients together.

3) Throw in orange zest and raisins, mix well.

4) In a measuring cup, whisk milk, eggs, orange oil and melted butter together. Pour the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir with a whisk, spoon or fork till just combined. It is important that the ingredients are only just combined. Do not overmix.

5) Spoon the mixture into muffin paper cups till about 2/3 full. Top with some streusels prepared earlier. Bake for 15 to 20 mins or till golden brown and when tooth pick inserted comes out with few loose crumbs. (mine took around 18-19 min)

Recipe adapted from Rei

sweets for the very sweet-toothed

Anna's recent write-up on her macaron making journey made me think of mine. Like her, I went through many many macaron making attempts in search that perfect macaron. A macaron with 'feet', slight crispy shells with moist, slightly chewy interior and dry and smooth bottoms.

I must say I have quite a little 'luck' making macarons as my very first attempt already had feet! Well, sad to say the oven temperature was too high and they brown SO quickly, they almost got burnt so I was left with no choice but to pull them out. As a result, the bottoms weren't dry enough and they left their sticky bellies on the parchement.

A quick check at my macaron picture folder did I realise it was almost a year ago when I first attempted to make these temperamental, fussy little sweets. I very much believe I went through almost all the various problems anyone who attempted making macarons would have came across. Cracked tops, fat feet, no feet, sticky bellies, air pockets, you name it, I did it.

I have since tried the italian meringue and french meringue method which oddly, I very much prefer the french meringue method! For some very very odd reasons, italian meringue-made macarons left me with either with no feet or very small feet. No only that, the shells were a tad chewy and SUPERLY sweet. Not to mention a HUGE mess to clean up with the sticky sugarly pot and tons of perspiration =X

However, the french meringue method seems the most vulnerable and most often leaves me with air pockets. But, i guess that could be solved when it's filled with filling isn't it?

I'm pretty satisfied with today's attempt after a horrible, demoralising one last night. Though not perfect, but I think it's one of the best to-date. The shells were a teeny weeny bit too soft in my opinion (which i think will further soften with the filling filled) but i liked how the interior was soft and so very slightly chewy. I had quite a bit of leftover cookies and cream filling so I decided to fill them all with that. It was a pretty good combination i must say IF you like cookies and cream.

Although I did leave the macarons out to dry, they didn't really form a "skin". I didn't really bother and just chucked them into the oven and boy was I glad that the feet bubbled away and no cracks! The feet was a little high in my opinion, which might be because I underfolded it by just a few strokes, i think.

Other than the pretty feet and nice dry, smooth bottoms, it's my first successful attempt at making coloured macarons! So, I'm pretty satisfied despite the shells that are a tad too soft. Probably bake them longer..? I don't know!

I know I kinda promised a friend some macarons a LONG time ago. So, here they are, all packed and awaiting collection. =D

Mooncakes Part I

I made my very first mooncakes last Mid-autumn festival and that experience taught me alot. I even tried cooking my own lotus paste. Somehow, I couldn't get it to taste like those you buy outside. =( This year, to start off some simple mooncake experiments, I decided to buy a packet of White Lotus paste from Sun Lik while I re-stocked some cake-making items for an order. To my surprise, the paste tasted really good! It wasn't too sweet and still retained the paste's fragrance. Not too oily either. =))

I was pretty psyched to start my mooncake making experiments so I refered, once again, to Aunty Yochana's blog for some mooncake recipes. I remember using her baked mooncake recipe last year but forgot how long i baked it for. I couldn't follow the temperature and timing stated in her recipe as I made smaller mooncakes. Speaking of which, I finally used the mooncake moulds I ordered from Elyn last year to good use! And they were REALLY easy and GOOD to use. The imprints were SUPER clear and stayed clear even after baking. I vaguely remember that when I was using those old-fashioned wooden moulds last year, the imprints were good before baking but were all blur and "smudged" when out of the oven. So, I was really really happy and glad with the result this time. HOWEVER, the mooncakes came out of the oven like a ROCK. seriously. It was like...HARD biscuits. Naturally I'd think I over-baked it.

Although I read up on various bookes and websites that baked mooncaked have to go through a "maturity" period for the oil that's in the skin to seep back in which will soften the skin. Again, vaguely remembering that aunty yochana's recipe need not this "process". So, was really pretty upset about the mini-experiment. Since I wasn't desperate to gobble up the moocakes, at least not in that rock-hard state, I decided to let them "mature"....

2 days later...

The skin is now soft! And they tasted like mooncakes! HA~ D gave it a thumbs up and my sister who tried the rock-hard one, now said this scores 100 points! haha..must be the vast difference in texture that led her to such an exaggerated score. =p

Although I used ~33% weight for the pastry and ~66% for the filling, my mum said the skin a little thick. But I like thick skin lehh (though i'm NOT thick skin)..okok bad joke.. in any case, I'll probably try 25% pastry or something, if my pastry wrapping skills allows me. =XX

More experiments coming my way!

*No pictures of the whole mooncake cos D happily gobbled 3 out of the 5 left. (I thought he took pictures of the whole mooncake). Now, there's only 1 left.

Gribbit!

Pardon me for the quality of the photos. My mum's gone for a holiday and so has the lucky camera. Hence, this picture was taken with my sister's iphone, which, I unfortunately is such a noob in taking photos with it.

Another order, by a uni classmate, Nick. He asked if I could do a "Keroppi" cake for someone whom he doesn't wish to disclose to me. *heh heh* must be for a girl lah. I obviously agreed right? No insides of the cake for obvious reasons. It's a simple chocolate sponge cake with cookies 'n' cream filling, frosted with non-dairy whipped cream. He requested the picture to be decorated with piping jelly. It was really simple and i loved the effect except for the not so perfect eyes =( I wanted to pipe a shell border, but thought it'd make the cake very "old fashion" looking. So I piped a bead border with the shell method. The tip was a little too huge and my poor piping skills showed. sigh..Nonetheless, I hope nick doesn't mind and the lucky girl would be impressed =p

A close up on the cute cute frog, Keroppi!

ah goo goooo...

Anna had just recently gave birth to her second little prince, Dermott. I was pleased to have received her order for baby shower cookies. I belive it's pretty common to give out cookies as baby shower favours in the West, but not here in Singapore. It was a pretty novel idea and i was glad, because that means i can use many pretty and cute cookie cutters.

Each box contained 10 cookies, with a total of 30 boxes. Each box include, letters: "B" "A" "B" "Y", a milk bottle, rocking horse, rattle, baby pram, teddy bear and a small little ducky.

Too bad I didn't manage to capture any photos as I was too engrossed in finish baking, packing and sending it off. A little tired, but glad that I managed to pull it off on time.

If you've been quite an avid baker, you'd realise the lack of pretty packing here in Singapore and so when I was searching high and low for a suitable box, I pretty much gave up and decided to "customised" the boxes myself.

I printed a "baby themed" border and paste it around the boxes together with a personalised cute label, with Dermott's face! =D The baby themed border took me a while as I vectored each and every baby-related item and coloured it with photoshop to avoid infringing copyright laws. But I was really pleased with how the box turned out. Unfortunately, the pictures of the boxes is all i've got for this huge cookie project..I shall wait and see if Anna's got any pictures to offer =)

update: Anna has very very kindly sent me the photos of the cookies and I've uploaded them! =) Thanks alot Anna! =DD