MACARONS :D Cookies and cream mint, and green tea.

I had a gathering with my old classmates from secondary school the other day, and we decided to potluck food, and I thought it would be a great occasion to make some christmas macarons! The initial idea was to have green and red, then since the green tea macarons I made the previous time were such a hit, I decided green has to be green tea flavoured. For the red macarons, I wanted to have a white-ish filling so it would look like candy canes, and hence giving me the idea of having mint as a filling. At the same time I wanted to try making a cookies and cream filling, and the ideas sort of merged.. I used the basic macaron recipe for the shells but added green tea powder for the green macs, and red colouring for the red macs. For the filling, I melted chocolate into heated whipping cream, and the ratio depends on the consistency I would like, and I added green tea powder or crushed mints.

In my mind the ideas were perfect, but of course in practice they tend to not turn out so perfect after all! xD For the macaron shells, I ran out of red colouring before I got to the shade of red that was desired, and hence it became sort of a deep pink ._. and green tea powder was quite potent so I only put in a teaspoon so the taste won't be overwhelming, so the shells were a light shade of green.

For the filling, I used milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate for the green tea ones, and the chocolate ganache was runnier than usual due to the increased proportion of milk in it, and hence they became more of a drizzling consistency instead of a spreading one.. I tried to salvage it by adding some chocolate chips, but it was still a tad too runny >< and the assembled macarons ended up looking like they have no filling and some filling started to dribble down the sides, so I had to quickly pop them into a container and into the fridge they go, so the chocolate may harden a little more.

Green tea macarons with green tea chocolate ganache!

As for the cookies and cream, a white looking colour would require white chocolate, and that means it contains even more milk! I tried to use very much less whipping cream while making the ganache, but it became very difficult to mix. I couldn't find peppermint oil at the supermarket, so I crushed mint sweets instead and melt them into the mixture over the flame, but as the sweets melted the sugar caramelised, and it all became a sticky mess. After spooning some onto the macaron shells, I sprinkled crushed oreo cookies on it, then capped it with the other macaron and inverted it to allow the sticky mess to somehow fuse o.O

Cookies and cream mint macarons!

I had a lot of fun shooting the macarons to make festive pictures (: Some friends actually thought I shot them at some studio! xD

The macarons were well received at the gathering, although some felt that they were a little on the sweet side. Next time I would just stick to dark chocolate xD and using mint chocolate if I couldn't find peppermint oil.

Merry Christmas!! and happy holidays (:

Austrian Raspberry shortbread

I haven't been baking since forever due to A levels, but now that's over, a few friends and I headed over to another friend's house to bake! It was a day that nothing went according to plan except lunch..

So, after lunch, we were going to adapt Smitten Kitchen's shortbread recipe to contain salted caramel filling instead of raspberry. And that was the start of all our troubles. We all agreed that 2 cups of sugar sounds insanely sweet so we cut the sugar to 1.5 cups. While measuring out the flour and sugar, the electric whisk that was creaming the butter went a little mad and was reluctant to beat.. and while all that was going on, we tried to separate egg yolks from the whites unsuccessfully and resulted in 3 wasted eggs.

so then we were trying to incorporate the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients, and somehow, the dough remains sticky and refuse to turn dough-like. after much worrying and trying to unstick my fingers from the mess, we gave up and tried adding some sugar instead.. which worked like a charm o.O the mixture finally became a dough and we dumped that in a clingwrap and put it into the fridge.

We got started on the salted caramel by putting sugar and some water in a pan on medium low heat. to our shock and horror the sugar just wont melt and the mixture started bubbling. we fiddled around with the knobs and heat to get it to stop boiling and start dissolving instead, and the mixture just became viscous with many chunks of recrystalised sugar, reminiscent of rhyolitic lava flow. after much desperate mixing and googling for help, the mixture started to turn amber! amidst the yells of happiness, the celebration hasn't exactly begun when the amber colour turned brown in a matter of seconds and a burning smell filled the air..

and with that, we ended up scrubbing caramelised spoons, spatulas, and the pan. And also created some abstract art using the burnt caramel since it wasn't edible anyway.

this is an abstract art piece displaying a lion chasing deer across the prairie.

um. use your imagination.

okay so we gave up after cleaning and decided to scramble those wasted eggs instead, and ate it with some crepe a friend prepared earlier in the morning (:

breakfast at 4pm

when the dough was done chilling, we had to some how get it into small pieces, but we have no food processor.. hence we ended up grating it as fast as we can before it all softens into a lumpy mess in our hands D:

then we finally put the shortbread with raspberry jam into the oven, and 10 mins into baking we realised it was on the wrong function, toast instead of bake, so the tops were browning fast.. :O after turning the dial into the correct mode, we sat around, tuned our friend's guitar, watched the amazing Vi Hart, and finally, it was done and we could pack our things, clean up, and make our way home (: although everything was entirely not according to plan with many failures, it was fun (: i'll try salted caramel again, when I'm feeling brave (;

it turned out quite good! still a little on the sweet side, but I guess its supposed to be sweet anyway..

Oatmeal chocolate chip walnut cookies

Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? The childhood game kept replaying in my head as I was baking.

Preliminary exams are just over, and so here I am, baking again (: I decided to try these oatmeal cookies from Happy Home Baking for my friends! This lady is really fantastic at cooking and food photography, I was drooling so much at her cookies, so I just have to try it!

People who don't like eating cookies that are too sweet, these are the cookies for you (: it is really as great as the original baker said it is! Low in sugar and high in fibre, this is probably the healthiest any cookie can get.

The amount of ingredients should be followed strictly, there is no need to cut anything. I love how every bite will be filled with the crunchy walnut and oats, and the slight sweetness of the chocolate chips. It's a quick recipe too, only 10 minutes of baking time, so it is rather convenient to whip up these cookies anytime!

Plain macarons with orange chocolate ganache!

I spent yesterday evening at my friend Yuqing's house teaching her and 2 other friends, Xueling and Yining how to make macarons, and it was my first time using an oven that is not my own to make these tricky treats.  Nevertheless, I said yes when she asked me, and I was secretly hoping the macarons will turn out fine..

The meringue was fine, my friends' piping were quite good (:

While waiting for the macaron shells to form skins, we got started on the ganache. We used a basic chocolate ganache recipe and added orange zest and some orange juice. It looked and tasted good (:

Then came the ultimate test! The oven! I used the temperatures that I always used on my own oven, and they turned out to be too hot for my friend's oven.. We started off with 160C, and the macarons started browning in 7 mins D: we hastily adjusted the temperature 5 degrees down and then later on another 5 degrees, but nothing stopped the macarons from continuing to be more brown :/ eventually when the macarons were done, they were nice with no hollow shells, just a tad burnt on the outside ):

We tried varying the temperatures and tweaking the top and bottom heating, but the condition didn't improve for the subsequent batches, and one batch even got terribly burnt D: We ended up with 155C for 5 mins, then 150C for 5 mins, turn the tray around, and then 147C for another 5 mins or so. It seems to be the least brown it could be but still risen and cooked.

 We ended up with macarons like these, I guess they were not too bad! I tasted one this afternoon, I felt that the orange taste was a little too subtle in the sweetness of the macaron shells, but overall it is still good!

Bake Feste!

Exams ended last Thursday, and we had a short break until school started again today. My friend and I took advantage of this short holiday to bake after not baking for so long due to the exams (: So yesterday I had an insane bake feste with my dear friend claudia, and we made so many goodies! My feet were hurting at the end of the day from running around the kitchen, but the fun was worth all the hard work (:


First up was a green tea layered cake, recipe from here. It was quite nice, except that we were a little shy with the green tea powder and hence there was only the faintest of taste of green tea.. But anyway we had alot of fun dressing up the cake!

When our classmates saw it, they all said they have never seen so many macarons or truffles on a single cake xD It was a little crowded on the cake, but at least everyone got a macaron each (:

The macarons were green tea macarons with green tea milk chocolate ganache. The colouring was entirely due to the green tea powder, it is really quite potent as what many websites say, just a teaspoon of it makes the entire batter green. For the shells I just added a teaspoon of the powder with the dry ingredients, and for the filling I mixed in a teaspoon into milk chocolate ganache. The result is rather satisfactory, I love the burst of green tea flavour :D Its definitely something I'll try again!

The truffles were made due to a desperate attempt to use up the wasted yolks from the macarons, and I got the recipe here. The flavour is extremely rich, maybe due to the type of chocolates I used. Eating one is enough if you aren't a major chocolate lover! The weather in Singapore also made the rolling of the truffles into balls extremely difficult. It's so hot that the chocolates started melting and become extremely sticky after 15 mins of taking them out of the fridge to roll into balls.. I was so desperate I chilled my hands using ice cubes right before I started rolling, but that only worked for the first ball i rolled. I got quite enough of chocolates after that, I don't think I will be eating chocolates for some time >< They became more manageable after I rolled them in either cocoa powder or rainbow balls.

Besides the cake, claudia also made some raspberry oatmeal bars (: I don't have the recipe, but here is a photo of it! The sweetness of the jam was offset by the oatmeal crumble, I can eat a few at one go xD

I also decided to make peach cheesecake for my gymnastics batchmates, its a modified recipe from here. Its a really brilliant and easy recipe, and her strawberry jellyhearts look super pretty!! I still have yet to reach that level of presentation. I replaced the strawberries with peaches and I used orange jelly.

Comments about the changes was that the orange jelly is a tad too sour for a cheesecake for some, for other they thought it was still wonderful. I used Tortally jelly, which melted when it was out in the open for some time >< maybe the instructions for the amount of water is for really soft jellies. For a cheesecake that would last longer outside, next time I would just add less water and stir for a longer time to dissolve all the jelly crystals. But anyway, I love the jelly layer on the cheesecake, it creates a lot of wobbly and squishy fun!

Lastly.. How could I not have a cheesecake macaron? After the wonderful and tasteful idea making a cheesecake into a macaron came into my mind a few months ago, I googled around and found that so many out there has the same thought! There were many variations, such as making a cream cheese based filling and use fruit jams, sprinkling graham cracker crumbs on the shells, mixing cornstarch with jams and cook it to give it a thicker consistency, dressing up the macaron as a strawberry (check out Macaron Mafia he is awesome!! This is his strawberry cheesecake macarons, they are amazing!)

So after I made the base of the cheesecake, I set aside some graham cracker and butter base aside, compacted it and left it in the fridge for a while. Then I made the cheesecake filling for the cheesecake, and scooped some into empty macaron shells. Then I took the extra graham cracker base that i set aside, broke off some small bits and embedded those into the filled half shells, and topped that with a peach slice before putting the macaron shell over it!

and the result! The cheesecake filling made the macaron shells a little soft, but it was really heavenly, and the peach slice and the chunks of the graham cracker base were like bits of yummy surprises in the macarons (: I love how macarons can be so versatile and delightful, be it making them and seeing feet and smooth tops, or trying out new flavours (:

red velvet macarons, Gryffindor inspired macs, and red velvet cake!

Lately I've been so busy I haven't been baking ): exams are coming right up after this hols, so technically this month is supposed to be for revision instead of vacation ): but my hands have been itching to bake something! A few days ago a new mac attack popped up, Mac Attack #30 Vacation Getaway Macarons! it sort of gave me an excuse to stop studying for a while and bake something, heehee.

Thinking along the lines of vacation, this June hols is a realllly hot summer, so I decided to make red velvet macarons to convey the red hot summer! Singapore is located in the doldrums, so there is hardly any wind, coupled with the intense solar heating at this equatorial region.. nightmare D: Especially when you are trying to figure out an especially annoying math or chemistry question. On some days I would have the fan facing me and not oscillating, but yet I would still be sweating T_T Global warming and climate change is really a nightmare.

Depressing things aside, the macarons turned out really well despite the humid weather! After the last time working with so many colours, this time I knew how much food colouring to add to the macs, so I didn't have to toggle between mixing and adding more colouring. The macarons weren't runny when I was done and ready to pipe (: 

they were so round, I was surprised :O

no hollow bases either! :D

I made some cream cheese buttercream, its really nice to work with :D recipe from An Edible Mosaic (:

red velvet macarons with cream cheese buttercream

Did I ever mention that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan? :D

That's me and my friend dueling xD

I'll be going to the Harry Potter exhibition at the art science museum this week! :D For that I added some lemon zest to the cream cheese buttercream, and some yellow food colouring to make sort of gryffindor coloured macarons! :D

Then I realised that they look like the red eyes of Lord Voldermort :O

My friend's birthday is coming, so I decided to make a red velvet cake with red velvet macarons (:

it looks like a car! I was secretly amused xD

the cream cheese frosting was weird though ): I couldn't seem to get to the nice spreading consistency once I added the whipping cream,  and it was all runny and weird. Even after adding more icing sugar, it just remained runny :/ they would just run down the sides of the cake, so I settled on just icing in between the layers >< I hope the cake wouldn't feel too dry. I have no idea why, but every time I work with whipping cream this happens, it just goes directly to the over-whipped state without ever reaching the whipped stage o.O

I drizzled more icing on another slice of cake, and put it into the fridge for overnight, this morning it turned out quite good o.O is this supposed to happen?

okay that's all, till next time! :D

Apple muffins with cinnamon and oats

The previous time I tried this muffin recipe was for the oreo and marshmallow muffins, and the oreo crumbs made the batter a little on the dry side, and the marshmallows resulted in all those cavities.. i decided to try the recipe again, and use apples instead (: another reason was that i had this inexplicable craving for apple and cinnamon muffins x)

so this time i chopped 2 apples into chunks and mixed them into the batter, and loaded the muffins with the crumb topping mixed with cinnamon and oats. The result was quite satisfactory, the muffin was really soft inside, with the apples retaining their juicy goodness, and of course, the crumb topping, the best part of the muffin, is still really good (:

I made normal sized muffins for some of my friends whose birthdays are just round the corner, as well as tiny ones for my class and my gymnastics juniors (:

Cookies and cream and marshmallow muffins!

I had a sudden craving for oreo muffins, so I went to the supermarket and bought oreos.. and I have no idea why but I thought marshmallows would be a good idea too, so into the batter they went (:

They rose pretty well in the oven, and the marshmallows looked nice and brown (: but i wasn't so sure about when to take them out, so the marshmallows got burnt and they exploded o.O I ate one muffin and most of the marshmallows were just empty spaces with sugary residues o__o

But overall these were really great muffins!! its modified from a blueberry muffin recipe, the crumb topping is really nice (: although the insides were a tad hard and dry ): its a really easy recipe, the electric mixer isn't even needed. less washing for the lazy ones x)

Butterscotch brownies/blondies

A few days ago was my trampoline competition, and as comp souvenirs i baked blondies for my batchmates, seniors, and juniors (:

Original recipe: http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/30256/Chewy-Butterscotch-Brownies/detail.aspx

my butterscotch morsels were all stuck together for some reason, so i heated them a bit to melt them and hopefully mix them in. however the batter got wayyyy to sticky and i was so worried my mixer will give up and die.. luckily it didnt. Maybe next time i'll melt them further and stir it in by hand.

they took a really long time to cool and harden a little, and the outcome was this nice, crusty and chewy blondie ((: The crust wasn't as thick as i would have liked, but i really liked the chewy texture (: the butterscotch was rich, it wasn't too sweet, and they did disappear pretty quickly, so i assume it must have been good (: its a recipe worth keeping and making again!

Rainbow Macarons

I have never done food blogging before, but after spending so many hours drooling at pictures of good food on other's blogs, I have decided to start my first food blog! Most of the things I do in the kitchen is usually baking, during the times I have between homework and when I have a sudden itch to make something..

I've been following Mactweets since the end of 2010, and that was also around the time I started making macarons. Truthfully, before I started making them, I have never eaten a single macaron before, not knowing what I was missing out, and I was intrigued by how it's smooth top and frilly feet comes about. Being adventurous teenagers, who have just completed our end-of-year assessments at school, and thus have nothing else to do, a group of friends and I decided to spend an afternoon learning how to make macarons after googling the recipe.

The very first attempt at making macarons, in 2010

And how naive we were! Of course the macarons failed, leaving us clueless and wondering what went wrong for us to end up with cracked meringue cookies. That was when I did more research and realised making macarons wasn't as easy as the recipe looks, and the result: my obsession with macarons ever since. Strangely how something so small can cause such a huge and lasting impact x) I've also learnt alot from all those who participated in mac attacks, everyone always have interesting and inspirational macaron ideas (: Of course, my macarons are still far from perfect, for some reason they always stick to the parchment paper a bit too much when I'm trying to remove them o.o

In the banner up there, are pictures from some of the batches of macarons I have made. Most are plain shells with dark chocolate ganache, and sometimes coffee flavored shells. there was one giant mac I made in the last picture, with the spectacles in the photo as reference.. it was originally meant for me to enjoy sinking my teeth into a mac as huge as my face, but my mother cut it up into pieces when I wasn't at home.. But well it was her good intentions to allow for less messy eating.. .___.

Recently some of my friends asked for rainbow macarons, and then I saw the newest Mac Attack #29 calling for colours... :D and in my sudden fit of excitement, I decided to start a food blog, and here I am typing away while my homework is calling.. erm nevermind that for now.

I'm not sure how to rotate the pictures.. oops.

batter in rainbow colours!

macarons shells matched up and ready for assembly

I went crazy with the food colouring, because previous times the colours were too light and didn't turn out very pretty after baking, and I ended up with these intense shades, causing the macarons look a little like play-doh.. haha x) I also tried piping various shaped macarons, but some of them went out of shape as the batter was too runny after all that mixing of colours :(

Anyway here are the prettier ones!

mickey mouse!

Everything seems to be on pops nowadays, and to join in the party.. here is a heart shaped macaron pop!

They are rainbow macarons with peanut butter filling, and rainbow macarons with apple buttercream frosting (original recipe from the cupcake project)

The idea of using the apple buttercream frosting came from http://www.kevinandamanda.com/whatsnew/new-recipes/caramel-apple-macarons-with-cinnamon-apple-butter-frosting.html, they have some of the coolest and most creative macarons I've seen :D the frosting was good, just a little too sweet for my liking, although my friends loved them. For the peanut butter ones I was afraid the taste of the peanut butter would overshadow everything else and so I filled those macs with less filling. The result was quite interesting, the sweetness of the shells was balanced out by the nutty flavour. I quite like it, and I would probably try peanut butter again, probably peanut butter and chocolate or PB&J (: