Dainty Little Beauties!

Ah macarons. Where do I begin now?

Google "Macaron Recipes" and in no time you'll be begging for someone to throw you a lifeline and drag you out of the recipe tsunami. Not only are there possibly hundreds of recipes, there are also possibly tens of variations of each step involved and even variations in the pre-processing of the ingredients!

I foolishly decided that the best way forward would be to pick one recipe at random and just roll with it. I ended up with little maca-frisbees instead of dainty, well risen macarons and had to consign the whole batch to the bin. Hard lesson indeed.

Nevertheless, I decided that I had to make these or at the very least, turn out something that remotely resembled macarons. So began the long research and cross referencing between popular recipes, ditching some and picking others.

Shells aside, the filling had to be sorted out as well and a reliable buttercream recipe had to be found. It looked like my work was really cut out for me.

Thankfully I managed to stumble upon a buttercream that wasn't too cloyingly sweet and bitty with sugar crystals. Now for the shells. After reading through seemingly endless pages upon pages of tips and tricks, the gist seemed not to over mix the beaten egg whites and to sift in the ground almonds.

Armed with that, I set about making the macarons, determined to get at least one decent looking one that I could reward myself with for all the time spent on the research. The importance of using a hand mixer instead of a stand mixer cannot be over-emphasized enough! Using the much less powerful hand mixer gave me so much more control over the whisking process and I was able to stop before ending up with hard, foamy and chunky whites.

The batter still looked good after mixing the almond meal and sugar in with the colouring - not too runny and definitely pipe-able. Wasn't long before I had baking trays with little beads of glistening macaron batter neatly arranged in rows...very near the end now..don't screw up!

After resting the dainty little babies for about half-an-hour, in they went into the oven in a double tray to get that elusive "feet" everyone swoons about. After about 10 minutes of frantic finger crossing and pacing back and forth, they were done!

Oh what joy it is to find the feet on these lovely, fragile and temperamental beauties! Not the most perfect bunch of macs by a mile but compared to my maca-frisbees, these are a definite upgrade!

Mousse With A Twist!

This next order I received was a pretty challenging one being a mousse cake and a Gula Melaka one too. It was for a birthday for my friend's mom who was an ardent fan of the palm sugar so I really didn't want to disappoint!

It's no secret that I am crazy about anything made of Gula Melaka. If only it could be used entirely as a sugar substitute! Such a rich, smoky, velvety and deep flavour comes from this humble and less well-known cousin to the more popular ones like white/brown sugars.

I decided to move away from the standard mousse cake decoration I usually do and instead, cover this one with a layer of whipped cream to give an impression of a cream cake beneath that layer of cream cover on top. 

Not the boldest variation but I thought the white cream would make whatever decoration that went on top of the cake stand out a little more as compared to decorating a cake that had a pale brown top. I had in the back of my mind a worry that the mousse might melt a little too quickly if left outside for long so the cream  layer acted as some sort of an insulator to keep the cold in the mousse instead of it getting warm!

Thankfully all went well in the end!

Why So Serious?!

Here in Singapore, jellies aren't regarded as highly as cakes. Well, come to think of it, that seems to be the case everywhere else I've been to! It's probably because there's nothing much you can do with jellies..nothing fancy, nothing eye-catching, nothing amazing. Right?

I was quite amazed when my mum showed me pictures of jellies she had done in the past - it was pretty hard to believe that some were actually made of jelly! There were fish, rabbits, roses, dolls...all in jelly form! It struck me that this was one area that wasn't explored much here and there was a good chance that many had no idea of the versatility and creative edge that jellies had.

The clown jelly wasn't particularly hard to put together but you have to get your measurements and mould sizes right or the assembly would turn into a terrible mess! You'd need a little luck with the clown's frilly collar as the peaks and troughs of the mould can cause the jelly to get stuck in places.

I still can't get the image of the completed thing off my mind..it's just one of those things that you'd never imagine possible!

Cupid's Gotta Have Cake Too!

Ok I've been putting off posting here for too many tomorrows...it's been more than a month since my last post and the backlog has been piling up!

I had never taken a Valentine's Day order before but when the opportunity came up I said yes almost immediately..I'd love to get a cake specially made for me by my significant other but since that day hasn't arrived yet, I thought it'd be awesome if I could help someone else surprise their sweetheart instead!

Baking the 50 cupcakes after work was tough but compared to this, the cupcakes were a breeze. I wanted the cake to be as fresh as possible on delivery so I gave myself a 2 day window to get it done. But I completely forgot to factor in "getting off late from work" and "Murphy's Law".

So not only was I late getting back home to start on the cake, I also had problems with getting the right consistency for the fresh cream frosting. The hot and humid weather conditions even at night made things much worse for the frosting - it was melting too easily and you really don't want to be piping designs with ultra soft cream..

It's at times like these that I truly appreciate my mum's guidance and helping had. All that years of cake making and bags of experience really shone through and she saved the day (and the order!) for me. At the end of those 2 days, I was glad I had a cake that I could be proud of and confident it'll bring a smile to a lucky someone!

Red Velvet Mayhem!

Ok there's been such a backlog of posts building up and so much has happened since the last post! Well, not exactly a great whole lot has gone down but it FEELS like I made a million things back there...guess that's the feeling you get when you're just starting out!

First up would be the largest order I've ever taken thus far! 50 red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting..yep you read that right...F-I-F-T-Y cupcakes. I decided to go ahead and accept it anyway because I believe that if someone comes to you with the notion that you can do this, you might as well have a pop at it! What's the worst that could happen eh?

Well like all cakes, this too had its fair share of hiccups and the major problem was getting the right consistency for the cream cheese frosting. To be honest, I hate working with cream cheese. Beat it too little and you won't get much volume in the frosting, beat it just a little too long and it'll spilt. It doesn't help that each block of cream cheese costs a hefty 7 bucks.

I owed a serious lot to my mum for helping me in this order as it was the first time I had to juggle work fatigue with cake making stress and somehow we dragged ourselves over the finish line at 1AM on the day of collection! Thinking back, it actually wasn't too hard at all and everything depends on a successful frosting...get that right and you'll be laughing.

Frosting the swirls was kinda fun in the end and thankfully I got a positive review which made it all worth the effort! And special thanks to my mum for coming up with the innovative compartmentalization idea for placing 25 cupcakes in a box without them touching each other..she's a genius!

Fish and Tarts!

I think the best thing about living in a multi-racial and ethnically diverse country is that all major festival sets everyone in a festive mood! Now that the Lunar New Year is just around the corner, rows and rows of festive goodies deck the shelves of bakeries and supermarkets alike and everything's adorned in red. Needless to say, it's hard for me - and I imagine - everyone else to resist those delectable pineapple tarts and crisp prawn rolls begging to be taken off the shelves and just devoured...

What better time than now - when the craving hits the hardest - to roll out a fresh from the oven, homemade batch of my mum's finest pineapple tarts?! These buttery, sweet and tangy beauties need no introduction really. Just plop them in front of anyone and watch their eyes light up in delight! Heh..

Finally, I got to make the whole thing from scratch after watching my mum make them year after year and always not having the time during Deepavali due to exams and what not. Felt pretty good in the end!

I've only ever seen my mum make the fish jelly once and that was probably about 15 or 16 years ago but the image of it in my mind remains as fresh as the day I first set my eyes upon it.  The intricate arrangement of the scales combined with the fact that each "scale" has to be placed individually really makes this change one's perception that jellies are boring and easy peasy.

I was pretty worn out after trying my hand at it and it took almost half a day before it was finally ready to be unmoulded. It wasn't perfect but for my first attempt, I had no complaints!

Out With The Old, In With The New!

It's hard getting used to quite drastic changes in my schedule of late so the oven has been getting quite a bit of rest! A brand new year ahead full of challenges, rewards and of course - more, more and more cakes!

First up, I received another order for a log cake after a recommendation from my friend to another of his and I can't stress how grateful I am for that! Another chocolate hazelnut one to round up the year!

The new oven finally arrived in the last couple of days of last year and we had to try out the temperature settings to find out the optimal one for baking. There probably couldn't be a better excuse to get baking again in the new year! 

My mum had wanted to try out a black and white cake she saw on display at a shop some time back and I had two large bars of Korean white chocolate couveture just sitting in the fridge that I hauled back from my month long exchange trip there. It wasn't long before the cake was done and topped with both the milk chocolate couveture and the white chocolate one!

We got the new oven up and running and also had a sweet start to 2013 - two birds in one stone!