Distractions...

It’s been a while since I blogged and there’s really no excuse but laziness. Work has been busy but I’ve been distracted with other things so I didn't bake much. Shopping, movies, massages, reading other food blogs, reading Twilight and other books...so I just didn’t feel the motivation to bake. I finally finished the Twilight Saga, yup, I jumped onto the bandwagon. How could I resist, it’s really good.
Anyhow, although I haven’t been blogging, I did make a few things over the last month.
Hazelnut Macarons

Assorted Macarons with raspberry ganache filling

Japanese souffle cheesecake - it was unsuccessful

Mango chocolate

Happy Holidays...

Happy Holidays...I keep hearing this song at the mall. Although I’ve been superlazy and didn’t bake as much as I had planned, I did manage to bake a little to share with friends. Here’s what I did manage to whip up...

Espresso Chocolate chip cookies with pecans – I made seven batches of these cookies as I received an order for 30 boxes of these. After so many batches, I know I perfected them. However I think I had enough of them with all the testing and all.

Peanut Butter cookies – My sis made this one when we met up at my place for holiday baking session. We didn’t get too much done with lunch out in the big snowstorm and the power outage.

Ruelach – I’ve always wanted to make it but never got around to it. They’re tasty although not very pretty. I had some trouble rolling it up tightly.

Chocolate Macs with Nutella Ganache – I finally attempted the Italian meringue method of working with the egg whites. It was pretty simple, but my macs didn’t turn out that well. It looks really nice but there’s a big air pocket when you bit in.

Pink Macs with dark chocolate raspberry ganache – I used French meringue method for making the batter. I think it was a little runny so I ended up with an assortment of sizes of pink macarons. Although it’s not a puffy as the chocolate macs, they were chewy although a little sweet. For the ganache, I mixed in raspberry puree to dark chocolate and cream. Half the batch was unstrained puree while I strained the other half. I think I prefer the texture of the raspberry seeds in the ganache.


Chocolate black pepper icebox – I wanted to add some sort of spice into my cookie assortment and didn’t want to run to the store so I made this. It was very easy to make...I would add a little more pepper next time as I couldn’t really taste it.

Cranberry Pistachio Icebox – it’s the perfect Christmas cookie as it’s speckled red cranberries and green pistachios.


Packed up and ready to go.

More chocolate goodies...

Last weekend I attempted to make raspberry buttercream to try with another batch of chocolate macarons. Unfortunately the macarons it didn’t turn out as well as my previous batch. The batter was runnier, so I ended up with larger macarons. I will have to try out the Italian meringue method as I’ve read it’s more stable, resulting in more consistent results.
The buttercream also failed, so I ended up freezing the macarons since I didn’t have time to whip up another batch of buttercream. After thawing the macarons this weekend, I whipped up some peanut butter ganache. It’s a wonderful combination but I’m not a fan of PB and chocolate.

Chocolate Macarons

I heard chocolate macarons are quite tricky to make. I'm planning to test out various recipes and see which one works for me. This weekend it's recipe #1. It was pretty successful except I didn’t dry out the last pan of macarons long enough so they ended up cracking. The best batch was the second tray that went in as it was out the longest. Since the raspberries were quite tart, I paired it with milk chocolate. However, I found it too sweet – I think i’ll stick with dark chocolate next time since the macaron itself is quite sweet. Overall I’m happy with the results of recipe #1.

Weekend baking

I haven’t have been baking as much as I would like as I’ve been learning to cook. I had thought I would have more time to bake during the week but after making dinner I’m pretty much beat. So baking is left for the weekend.
Last weekend I did try out a few recipes. I’ve been craving apple tart from this store by work but thought since I had apples in the fridge, why not make my own. I found a quick puff pastry recipe on line, whipped up some pastry cream then assembled the tarts. Somehow it didn’t turn out as I planned. I didn’t have any apricot glaze or jam of any type so there was no glaze. I don’t think I had enough pastry cream either...I guess it’s back to the drawing board. Maybe I won’t be lazy next time and put in the effort and make puff pastry. The quick puff pastry just doesn't taste the same.

Boy do I love making pastry cream...and I love eating it. Instead of using my tried and true recipe, I tried the recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours. The difference is this one uses egg yolks. My recipe uses whole eggs and whipping cream so it’s richer.

Pastry Cream – Makes about 2 cups
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours

2 cups whole milk
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
1½ tsp pure vanilla extract
3½ tbsp

1. Bring milk to boil in saucepan. Meanwhile, in medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the yolks together with the sugar and cornstarch until thick and well blended. Still whisking, drizzle in about ¼ cup of the hot milk – this will temper, or warm, the egg yolks so they won’t curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remainder of the milk. Put the pan over medium heat and, whisking vigorously, constantly and making sure to get to edges of pot, bring mixture to a boil. Keep at a boil, still whisking, for 1 to 2 minutes, then remove from the heat.
2. Whisk in the vanilla extract. Let sit for 5 minutes, then whisk in butter a little at a time, stirring until fully incorporated and the pastry cream is smooth and silky. Scrape pastry cream into a bowl. Press a piece of plastic wrap on top of cream to create airtight seal. You can store in fridge or to cool it quickly put in bowl of ice.

Of course I didn’t only make apple tarts.

My cousin came over and we made gluten free banana loaves, we misread the recipe and put in a tad too much salt, so it was salty banana bread. I think the recipe also needs more banana to give it more moisture...it was a bit dry the next day.

To cap off the weekend, I whipped up a batch of chocolate crackle cookies to send off to a friend in HK via her husband who was in town. I hope she and her daughter enjoys it. Of course this was all last weekend and being Saturday again – I have to decide what to make this weekend. I do need to get to the grocery store though as I’m all out of sugar!

Back to Baking

I finally started baking again last week as our kitchen is now completely reno free. Tomy put in the finishing touches by putting up the backsplash.

I love pistachios so when I saw the recipe for White Peach and Raspberry tart with pistachio frangipane in Regan Daly’s "In the Sweet Kitchen", I was excited to try it out. I was even more excited to take a pic of the tart that I forgot to serve it with the raspberries – oops. My mom called to tell me she loved the tart but I found it so-so. The pistachios didn't wow me in the tart. I prefer basic frangipane with almonds.

I also tried Rei’s recipe for banana chiffon with great success. I was excited when the cake didn’t sink this time. It was fluffy and light - just how chiffon should be. Thank you Rei for sharing her recipe.

Since we had our first official guests over at the condo this weekend, I decided to make something different for them to try – macarons. I was worried it wouldn’t turn out, but thankfully it did. I just need to work on my piping skills to pipe out more uniform macarons. The first tray was good then it went downhill. I guess I’ll just have to make more macarons for practice. Another thing I need to work on is piping out the buttercream. I can’t figure out how much to pipe on in order for the buttercream to properly fill out between the two shells. I guess practice makes perfect.

Edit Note: My friends are too kind. After trying the macarons I realize it's too hard from storing in the fridge. I hope I had it out at room temperature long enough when I served it last night. I will have to revert back to my more sable buttercream recipe that keeps at room temperature.