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

My First Sugar Flower - Rose

My very first time doing sugar flowers! I made Rose.. not easy..took quite some time and the results are far from being good.. and the hot & humid weather isn't helping and i had to put the roses in aircon room to 'dry' it.

Part 2 : The Birthday Cake

I've finally completed my daughter's birthday cake! Didn't turn out the way i designed it though.. It was hard work and plus i didn't decorate it very well, ie, my 'workmanship' was rather untidy imo. What is supposedly 3-tier ended up looking like one very tall tier..LOL! I didn't cut each level cake to the right size i guess. :P Everything is edible (except the candles & ribbons) and the fondant is homemade MMF. I made the MMF using the mixer last night - which is definitely much easier than hand-kneading and less-messier too! Surprisingly the red and the black turned out quite dark quite unlike the icing on my cookies. I didn't add that much coloring either. The cake doesn't look very 'Venetian' either..:(...actually i think it looks more like the some flag?!!? hahahahaha... Oh well, my first time doing a 3-tier cake..so lesson well learnt..






i like this pic..the cake on the table with photos of my 'baby' at different age..:)



the BIRTHDAY CAKE : 1st tier: Chocolate cake with peanut buttercream frosting. 2nd tier: Vanilla cake with lemon buttercream frosting. 3rd tier: Vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream frosting. All covered with homemade MMF.

Part I - Birthday Venetian Theme

My daughter's 18th birthday is coming and she wants to have a 'Venetian Theme' for her birthday cake. I've designed her cake but too shy to post it up yet..hahahaha..until the end product, ie, the final cake turns out well like my drawing, then i will post it together with the cake...:D

I made these batch of decorated cookies in the shape of mask and fan...cos that's only what i can think of...hahaha..and that's all i saw selling at the shops in Venice when we were there! LOL! So, these mask & fan cookies will be part of the cake. Oh..as for the stars and hearts, i got tired of having to cut the cookies to mask & fan manually (yup..without any cookie cutters), that i took out the star & heart cookie cutters and cut the rest of the dough into the respective shapes!

Decorating cookies is hard work! Just decorating these few cookies took me like 4 hours to decorate and that doesn't include the baking of the cookies or even cutting the cookies into shape etc?! Tiring.. And again, my piping skills sucks! This is my first time doing decorated cookies..so i didn't even know it would be SOOOOOO tedious!

Here are the various photos of the decorated masks...







Here are the fans, stars and hearts..





You can see from the photos that some i didn't pipe well and evenly cos i was getting very tired...and it was like 11+pm and i was still piping....:(

And my daughter piped most of these (see photo below)...esp. the creative ones she did it..not bad i would say! She did the basic template of the mask & fan for me as a guide to manually cut out the cookies. :)

Pandan Coconut Macarons

Made a test batch of macarons today with local flavors, ie pandan & white chocolate coconut ganache. I added about 1 tsp of pandan paste but didn't add any coloring. I think should have added more coloring for a more vibrant color. And because it was just a test batch with small amount of batter, i piped out much smaller than what i usually do, i didn't watch the oven time and my first tray of macarons were slightly burnt on top...second tray was much better.

I added about 2-3 tbps of dessicated coconut to the basic white chocolate ganache...perhaps i should have used coconut milk to replace half of the heavy cream used to give that subtle hint of coconut flavor instead?

These macarons taste kind of like  those colored coconut candy that i use to eat when i was a little girl ..hahahaha..

I need to practice more on my piping skills though..

Coffee Macarons

Second batch of macarons that i made today. Coffee macarons with white-chocolate-coffee ganache. To give the macarons coffee flavor, i added 3 tsp of instant coffee powder & 1 tsp of coffee paste. White chocolate ganache with 2 tsp of instant coffee powder to give the white chocolate coffee flavor and ended up with not just coffee taste but also a tinge of toffee taste.

I find that once you get the 'hang' of making macarons, it is not too difficult actually..just know the right consistency of the macaron batter, everything will turn out well. The only thing is i am still bad with the piping..so some of my macarons are big and some are small.. hahahahaha...but the funny thing is despite all the uneven piping i still can 'match' the shells..lol!

Basic white chocolate ganache and basic macaron batter can be found at Tartelette's blog.

PS: These coffee macarons are instant hit with everyone..everyone likes the coffee macarons better than the orange ones, including me. Normally i like orange-flavored anything but some how when i ate them both side by side, the coffee ones stands out better. I guess i didn't put enough orange flavor to the orange macarons..next time i'll trying adding a bit of orange essence and see if that improves it.

Orange Macarons

I have been making ice-cream hence lots of egg-white sitting in my fridge..so i figured, why not make more french macarons (so i can practise too..hahaha..). I decided to make orange macarons with chocolate ganache with orange flavor & coffee macarons with coffee cream.

For orange flavor in the macarons, i added orange paste to give the macarons shell a tinge of orange flavor. For chocolate ganache (i used David Lebovitz's chocolate ganache) but to add that orange flavor, i added orange zest to the chocolate ganache and a bit of rum. I wanted to use orange liquor..but was too lazy to take it down from the high shelf so i added a bit of rum instead.

French Macarons

I finally made a batch of successful french macarons!!!! See that pretty little 'feet' there! LOL! After failing 2 times, my 3rd try i finally got it right. The 1st time i tried many months back with David Lebovitz's chocolate macaron recipe, i whipped the egg white too stiff. The 2nd time, i put way too much coloring! Ya, the recipe at Tartelette said..2 tb of powdered food coloring..when i added 2 Tablespoon (tb=tablespoon..no?)..way too much coloring!! Terrible.. in the end it is quite inedible with so much coloring imo!

Finally..i remembered i had the book Just Dessert by Chef Daniel Tay, the owner of Bakerz Inn and i followed his recipe through and through..and i got it right!! Yipee! I think his recipe is made more for our hot and humid weather and hence the whipped egg whites can hold better. I was ecstatic when i saw the macarons "feet" coming up while they were in the oven. :) However, i don't know if it is my oven or the instruction on book is wrong cos the timing in the oven was way too long imo and my macarons burnt a bit..(see the dark brown - suppose to be pink! - first tray). Then i adjusted the baking time and it became slightly better..(see the lighter brownish pink..second tray). And finally i got it right by adjusting my oven temperature and also the oven setting...and see that pink! Yup..the pink from the third and final tray! Oh yes, the colored powder, you need only just a few drops imo.

Here is quite a good video of how to bake french macarons but it is in french, i can't understand what the french chef is saying (my friend is going to ask her husband who is french to translate for me as soon as he is back from his business trip..hahahaha...and to give me his french macaron recipe too!! :D ).. but i learnt a good tip of how to moist the macarons and to lift them up from the parchment paper! I like his method!

Here's the video, i don't how how to embed it here...so here is the link:-
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1pl5c_recette-des-macarons_family
and the french chef is quite handsome too..lol!

More macaron recipes from SeriousEats.com and there is a recipe and also links to others who has their version of macaron recipes. And introduction to macarons by seriouseats.com - a good reference guide! :)