Macarons

I have been reading about the famous macarons craze in Singapore and Malaysia. So I have to try making macarons and see what all the fuzz was about. After researching some recipes, I've decided to use this recipe.

The first important thing about whisking egg whites is that the bowl must not have any oil, fat or any egg yolk at all. The other is the egg whites must be at room temperature.

120 gms almond meal
150 gms icing sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
3 egg whites
4 tablespoon castor sugar
a pinch of cream of tartar

1. Sieve the first three ingredients together.
2. Add a pinch of cream of tartar into the egg whites and beat at medium speed.
3. Gradually add caster sugar while beating the egg whites until medium peaks and glossy.
4. Gently fold in the sifted ingredients in two batches.
5. Pipe them on baking sheets. I made mine about 3-4 cms in diameter.
6. Let it rest for about 20 minutes while pre-heating oven to 170Celcius.
7. Bake for about 13 minutes depending on oven.
8. Cool down before sandwiching with chocolate ganache.

I read that after piping, you have to drop the tray onto the bench to get rid of any trapped air. I did that, but I don't think it got rid of any trapped air. Time to prepare the ganache.


100 grams dark chocolate
50mls thickened cream

Heat up the cream in a double boil. When it is hot enough to melt the chocolate, take it of the double boil and pour in the chopped chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is melted. Put it in the refrigerator until thickened before using it to sandwich two macarons together.

The macarons tasted so good and I now understand what all the fuzz is about. As I do not have very sweet tooth, I still found this a bit sweet eventhough I have reduced the sugar. Next time, I'll reduce the icing sugar to 120 grams instead. And my macarons did have feet.

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Easter Frogs?

It's Easter and I have a surprise for my kids. They've been very supportive and excited about my cake decoration journey. I'm making Easter eggs for them. I'm not make the chocolate eggs. I made the sugar paste boat and Easter frogs. They were full of praises when they saw them today. The frog is made from modelling paste and a pinch of gum tragacanth. This is to make it dry faster. For this amount of modelling paste, I added 1 quarter teaspoon of gum tragacanth. The color paste was added and kneaded in before modelling. After it is dry, I glazed the frog with edible glaze (gum arabic - 1 part gum arabic with 1 part water).

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My first Blog

I have been reading other peoples blogs for a long time. I've always found them interesting and found useful information from it. This is my first blog to keep a journal of my food safari.

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Chocolate Mud Cake

I have made mud cakes before and it used to turned out dry. Now I will take the cake out of the oven when the skewer comes out moist but not wet. An also Lindt chocolate makes a difference. It taste much better. This cake can also be covered with marzipan and fondant. It is very rich, I like it just as it is or serve with some cream.

1 cup (250 mls) water
250 grams butter
250 grams dark chocolate
150 grams self raising flour
150 grams plain flour
60 grams cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
450 grams caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tablespoon vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
125 mls buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. Put butter, chocolate and water into pan. Stir over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat. Cool.
3. Sift flours, cocoa and bicarbonate soda into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and make a well in the centre.
4. Add combined eggs, oil and buttermilk and using a metal spoon slowly stir to start incorporating to dry ingredients. Gradually stir in the melted chocolate mixture.
5. Pour into greased line tin.
6. Bake for 1 3/4 hours. Test centre with a skewer. It is ready when moist but not wet.

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My First Chritmas Cake

I started cake decorating classes 5 week before Christmas last year. I didn't know what I wanted to learn but was inspired by looking at pictures and wished that I could make cakes like those. This cake classes only do sugar paste (aka fondant). I wanted to learn piping and buttercream. That will be next. So this is my first complete decorated cake I've ever made. It's a fruit cake covered with marzipan(almond paste) and fondant (sugar paste). I made the flowers and leaves out of modelling paste which is similar to sugar paste but it dries hard.

First, this is the recipe for the fruit cake. I have made modifications to the original recipes. I've reduced the sugar and also the amount of fruits because I do not like my fruit cake too sweet. And I omitted peel because I don't like them.

230 grams plain flour

60 grams self raising flour

200 grams dark brown sugar

230 grams butter

5 (size 55 gram) eggs

800 grams mixed fruit

60 grams almonds

1 teaspoon cinnomon powder

1 teaspoon all spice

1 teaspoon nutmeg powder

1 teaspoon ginger powder

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

6 tablespoon brandy (or substitute with what you like)

1/4 teaspoon bicarb-soda

1. Mix fruit, essence, spices and brandy and leave overnight.
2. When ready to begin, mix bicarb-soda with 1 tablespoon of boiling water and pour over fruit.
3. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Mix well after each addition.
4. Then add alternatively flour and fruit into the creamed butter.
5. Wrap 3-4 layers of paper aroung the sides of the tray. This prevents the sides from getting burnt.
6. Pour into a greased lined tray at 160C for about 2-3 hours.

Leave it to cool for at least one day before decorating. If your cake is not flat at the top, cut it flat and make that the bottom. For covering the cake, the first layer is almond paste or marzipan and the top layer is sugar paste or fondant. I did not take any pictures of the process but this is the process.

1. Fill the cake with marzipan. If there is fruit on the surface, press it down. If it sinks, fill it.
2. Roll some marzipan to about 3 mm thickness, dust with icing sugar to prevent from sticking.
3. Put the cake on top of marzipan and cut around it( about 3 mm from the edges).
4. Take the cake off and brush the marzipan with egg white or sugar syrup so that it sticks to the cake.
5. Put the cake back and using a cake leveler, push the marzipan around the edges until inline with the cake edge.
6. Roll a strip of marzipan for the side. Cut the length equals to the circumference of the cake. The height can be slightly taller than the cake.
7. Brush marzipan with egg white or syrup and cover around the cake.
8. Turn the cake with the cover top on the work bench and cut the excess off the side (cutting inwards).
9. Then cover the bottom the same way as the top.
10. Leave this for at least 2 days before covering with fondant.
11. Roll the fondant to about 3 mm, dust with some icing sugar. Make sure that it can cover the top and the sides too. It is better to be slightly under(1 cm from the measurement required) than over (bigger than what is required). Because it stretches.
12. Brush cake with egg white or syrup. Put fondant over cake.
13. Level the top and the sides.
14. Once it is all sticking nicely, cut off the excess.
15. Put on a board and the cake is ready to be decorated.

I did not take any pictures while in the process of making it. But next time, I will.

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