Christmas Decorated Cookies

Finally found some time to bake and decorate cookies for Sunday School kids in Church. :) I received a box of cookie cutters, Christmas present from my dear friend and colleague - MH. These cutters definitely came in handy! :)

Cookie Recipe courtesy of Pam @ cookiecrazie

Royal Icing Recipe courtesy of Marian @ Sweetopia

Both of them have such great talent in cookie decorating! They are really good in what they do..check out their blog and you will be amazed at their creativity and awesome decorating skills. I'm always inspired by them and in awe of their beautiful & perfect work!

Snowflake cookies

I had a great time decorating these snowflakes cookies.

Loved that i can pipe any way i like and cookie still looked good. :)

Christmas Tree cookies

I love piping the little dots on the trees..

Ice-cream cookies

M&Ms as 'topping'

Snowman cookies

I didn't have time to wait for the white icing to dry before i pipe in red scarf.

Didn't help that my husband was nagging at me to finish up every 5 mins! Arggh..

Men, they don't get it, do they?

Cookies all packed and ready to go..:)

Chocolate Blueberry Cake (my son's birthday cake once again..)

My son's actual birthday falls on boxing day, so despite the disaster cake on Christmas Eve, i decided to bake him another cake (last min) so that our family can celebrate his birthday once again. I didn't plan on what design and the cake somehow ended up looking quite colorful - due to some designs which i piped and didn't like - then wanted to correct it and can't really do so and in the end the cake turned out in dual-tone green. Finally i ended up with this design...not exactly great..but i guess passable! Again, i decorated the cake with his favorite candy, M&Ms and Oreo's cookies!

Birthday Cake composed of chocolate sponge cake, whipped cream & blueberry filling. I wasn't sure if my son would eat the blueberry filling since he's one fussy boy. When he tried a bite, he liked it and ate up entire slice including the blueberry filling! :D Me Happy of course! Not easy to make him try new things!

I chose chocolate sponge cake last minute because I wanted something fast and at the same time, I wanted to try this recipe on youtube:-

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which was recommended by Gracekitchencorner . The chocolate sponge cake has a strong chocolate taste but i find the texture of the sponge cake not as soft as the usual sponge cake recipes that i have tried before but it is really quick to make. It is indeed rather spongy behaving every bit literally like a sponge! However imo, i feel that texture wise it is rather coarse.

[MacTweets/ma2] Macarons (Three Flavors)

Made 3 different flavor macarons:

- Mango Macarons with Mango Buttercream & Jelly filling. Absolutely love this flavor! I like anything mango, can't you tell? :)

- Matcha Macarons with Chocolate Buttercream & Mango Jelly filling. Not too bad. I like anything green tea too, but i would have loved it better if i paired it with green tea buttercream for that intense green tea flavor. But since matcha is only my fave and nobody seems to like it, i decided to play down the green tea flavor with chocolate buttercream.

- Espresso Macarons with Mocha Buttercream. A bit bitter, i guess a put too much espresso coffee powder! :p But i compensated by making the macarons smaller..ie, like espresso shot! lol!

Please do check out other bloggers' macarons & flavors listed on http://mactweets.blogspot.com!

And a REMINDER to myself: NEVER EVER bake 3 batches of macarons at night the next time, even if i have all the ingredients ready earlier! Didn't finish till 1230am! Dead tired!

Shoes & Shoe Box Birthday Cake

I made this birthday cake for my friend Emily. Her birthday is only in December and i know it's a bit too early, but i will be away during her birthday and i since i promised her that i'll bake her a birthday cake, i thought it would be better to be early than later. Hope she'll like it. :)

The shoes i made from gumpaste (Size 6.5). The right shoe on the top of the box is the one that i had to refix cos my dog ate up almost the entire shoe when i left it to dry (thankfully she didn't have a tummy ache - it's too much sugar for her!!). I had to refix the right pair & because i rushed to fix it, there's a lot of cracked lines on the shoe...not as nice & neat as the other left pair imo.

The Box is Devil's Food Cake with Light Chocolate Frosting covered with Chocolate Fondant. Light Chocolate Frosting i created on my own tastes similar to that of our famous local bakery Awfully Chocolate's chocolate cake". My box is not very well done..looks more like a pillow imo. :( But that's the best i could do..it's my first time anyway and it's not easy when i realised my cake was too soft.

Cottonballs are made from marshmallow fondant. These were added because i messed up the white board with chocolate frosting..:p..so had to cover up with something..and came up with this design last minute...lol! The more i look at them, the more they look like popcorns to me! :S

Sugar Rose was the one i made earlier...in my earlier post. Didn't have use for it till now. :)

Chocolate Macarons w/ Chocolate Orange Buttercream

I made a small test batch of chocolate macarons using the recipe from the Chinese version of "I love Macarons" by Hisako Ogita which i bought when i was in Taiwan a few weeks back since the English version hasn't been released yet. The author teaches the usual 2 methods of making macarons, the french meringue method & the italian meringue method. The italian meringue method, instead of cooking the syrup on stove, she cooked it in microwave and teaches you how to test for soft-ball stage. The book also has step-by-step photos of how to fold in the meringue.

I decided to try her french meringue method since her recipe uses only 1 egg white (ie approximately 50g), so even if i fail, there is less wastage. What i like about this book is that the ingredients changes are listed next to each flavored macaron. In other words, recipes are short & simple, with straight forward instructions.

Since i am not used to making macarons in such small quantity, i think i over-beat the eggwhite..:p! I think that's why my chocolate macarons above doesn't have the high "feet" and those around the edge of the pan have cracked shells. :P But i have to admit that this is the first time i made macarons so quickly in less than an hour! LOL!

Chocolate Orange Buttercream made from the leftover orange buttercream i had in the fridge. I just add melted chocolate to it and voila, chocolate orange buttercream and i must say it tastes delicious together with the chocolate macaron shells! :D This is the first time i actually like chocolate buttercream! Even though my macarons didn't look so pretty this time, at least they do taste yummy!

Pink Peppercorn Strawberry Macarons

I bought 3 bottles of pink peppercorn when i was in Taipei, since i've not seen them being sold in our supermarts here. I remembered i read in Cannelle Et Vanille that she once made pink peppercorn macarons and i thought such a good idea since i have now 3 bottles sitting at home and not to mention abundance of eggwhites in my freezer..:) Pink Peppercorn has this sweet spicy aroma that i really like. However, i can't really taste it when i eat the macarons probably the strawberry centre & strawberry buttercream overwhelmed it. Perhaps I should have made her pink peppercorn buttercream instead.

Click here to Aran's pink peppercorn macarons recipe.

Cappuccino Macarons

Yes, i still have LOTS of eggwhites sitting in my freezer.. Did a test batch of macarons using cappuccino paste for the macarons. Sandwiched with coffee buttercream. Coffee lovers would love these...

Sugarcraft: Ballerina Shoes

This is my first time making a pair of shoes out of fondant. Since it was my first time, i didn't want to use any store bought materials, and hence just used MMF leftovers in my fridge. I added a bit of gum hoping to harden the mmf but apparently it didn't work very well and basically the fondant was so soft and dried too slowly so i can't do my initial idea of a pair of sexy high heeled shoes. So in the end, i decided to make a pair of ballerina flats instead.

I didn't use any proper template and everything was cut just by estimation only and hence you can see the 'unevenness'. Also i was in a hurry (also lazy..:p) that instead of painting the stitches properly, i just drew a straight line over..i figured practice piece no need to be so perfect..lol!

Hopefully will do better the next time..:D

Strawberry and Lemon Macarons

Had a lot of egg white leftovers in the freezer..so decided to make a batch of macarons with buttercream filling.

Made strawberry macarons with strawberry flavored buttercream and sandwiched a slice of strawberry between the buttercream filling - it taste really VERY good! I love it. So does my daughter and she said this is the first time she actually loves eating macarons! :)

Lemon macarons with lemon flavored buttercream - has a subtle lemony flavor to it. I didn't use any lemon zest as i was afraid of tasting the zest in the buttercream. Taste great too but i still prefer the strawberry! :D

Vanilla Cupcakes (Decorated - Disney)

Bought some Disney cookie cutters today and tried it out on MMF - i think my first painted Mickey is the best..hahaha..i did Mickey and Minnie first then i got tired of doing the rest and i didn't do it as well as Mickey..lol! And i forgot to paint the flower pot on Minnie's head..LOL! Weather's really hot today and i didn't turn on aircon, so i dust the MMF with lots of icing sugar/cornflour..hahaha..i think can still see flour on the cupcakes..LOL!

And the rest of the decorated cupcakes ......

Chestnut Cream Cake (Decorated)

I made 2 cakes today...yup..and i finished both of them by 4pm today. Cake suppose to be for my daughter to bring to church, but i couldn't decide which one i should make, so in the end i made 2..LOL! This chestnut cake i have made before and i like it a lot. It's sponge cake with chestnut whipped cream layers and frosted with whipped cream. I made the roses with the whipped cream and you can see it is not as smooth as buttercream and has lots of air-pockets. I piped the chocolate into heart shapes and pasted it on the side of the cake.

Sugarflower - Rose III

I made these 2 pink roses tonight and i think i am quite happy with them! *FINALLY* i think i got them right..hahaha.. :D These are just medium roses and not full-blown ones as i got tired of making them...and adding more petals means more time and i want to go Zzzzzz...since it is way pass bedtime already..*yawn*..

Sugarflower - Rose II

I have been making these roses for the past 2 days after work. I don't know what i am going to do with these roses, but i just wanted to practice making them. This time round, i use gumpaste which is so much better than what i used before (ie MMF) and the petals don't fall flat like the first time i was doing it. Even though these roses are still not perfect (i love the roses made by cake journal and i am hoping to achieve that someday :) ) , i am quite happy with them this time and i can see some improvements. :)

Petit Four - Fondant Roses

Made mini-tier cake and used my sugar rose as deco. I dusted the roses with edible pearl dust to give them a shiny effect. It was running late at night and i had a long day today - cook dinner, do the roses etc, so i didn't roll the fondant well and i also didn't smoothen the fondant either, as i wanted to quickly get over and done with..so you can see some uneven markings.. :P