My Unsuccessful Macarons

A Macaron is a traditional French pastry, made of egg whites, almond powder, icing sugar and sugar. This sweet pastry came out of the French courts' baker's oven as round meringue-like domes with a flat base. I had eaten beautiful and tasty Macarons from one of my blog pal Evan(for those who are interested can take a look at her blog atBossacafez) And after seeing a lot of macaron fans making different favour of macarons from all over the blogsites, I began to love them deeply.......there is one site that I love her Macs too is Karen's(Mad Baker).


From all those wonderful and drooling photo of macarons, I starts to develop my interest in making them. I knew it's pretty difficult to handle these macs in term of all the ingredients measurements and the whipping of the meringue and folding of the dry ingredients and even to the temperature of the oven. All those little details will cause either a success or failure of baking a perfect macaron.

So based on those macaron recipes that I had research from the websites. I decided to try out 1 which most people had succeed making in it. But unfortunately out all the 3 tried that I had are all failure. I can't get the macaron to bloat up and stand with a feet like the normal one. Mine are just flat, round and feetless piece of cracker. I knew I have not did well in whipping the egg whites as well as the folding portion. And I guess my oven temperature are far too hot to cause the macaron to be burnt. But I will not give up on that, I had already seen improvement of the 3rd batch with smooth shiny surface and some feet form. So I shall continue experiment on these with those advice and guideline that I had gather.

Durian Cheesecake With Chocolate Fudge

My family had always being a Durian Lover. Especially my brother and my aunty's family. So I decided to come up with this special durian cheesecake using a basic non-bake cheesecake recipe.

Em... maybe you will ask me or wonder how does the taste like when you have a mixture of dark chocolate fudge with creamy durian cheese filling? I can tell you, it's a very special combination. As if you can have 3 different taste and texture within a cake itself. The crunch of the Oreo Biscuit, the smooth and creamy Durian Cheese Filling and lastly top with chewy Dark Chocolate Fudge. It's really heavenly match....


Although you need a few more ingredients and steps to make this Non-Bake cheesecake but it's really worth it and you can interchange the main ingredients with other fruits like: Mango, Strawberry, Blueberry or etc instead of Durian.

Ingredients For Crust:
225g - 250g Chocolate Oreo Biscuit, finely crushed
150g Unsalted Butter, melted and cooled

Methods:
1. Use a large sheet of aluminum foil to wrap the base of a 7" x 7" square cake ring.
2. Slowly drizzle in the melted butter into the biscuit cumbs then stir till the mixture it's almost combined(you might not need to add in all the melted butter) and press into cake ring and chill in the fridge until firm. (about 20 mins - 30 mins).

Ingredients For Durian Fillings:
250g Cream Cheese
70g Caster Sugar
250g Durian Flesh
1 Tablespoon Gelatine Powder
50ml Warm Water
125g Plain Yogurt
200g Non-Dairy Whipping Cream

Methods:
1. Double boil or microwave the gelatine powder with 50ml warm water until dissolved and set aside.
2. Beat the cream cheese and sugar until creamy and light, then add in the durian flesh and continue to beat until well combined.
3. Next pour in the melted gelatine mixture and yogurt then stir till combined.
4. Lastly pour in the whipping cream and slowly stir till the mixture is creamy and well mixed.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared biscuit base tin and chill for at least 3 hours or overnight then proceed to the chocolate fudge.

Ingredients For Chocolate Fudge:
150g Semi Bitter Dark Chocolate
100ml Whipping Cream
30g Unsalted Butter

Methods:
1. Put all the ingredients in a pan/glass bowl over boiling water(or use double boiler).
2. Whisk the ingredients for 5 minutes or so until the fudge is smooth and glossy.
3. Let the warm fudge cool down to room temperature before pouring into the firm cheesecake top and tap the cake a few times to release any air bubbles.
4. Put it back into the fridge and let the chocolate fudge set for about an hour or so before cutting into slices and served.

Notes:
a) When making this cheesecake, try to make it in square tin so that the layer will not be too tall or else you will end up with a thick layer of durian cream cheese filling.
b) I suggest a 7" x 7" square tin or 8" round tin will do a great job.

Green-Tea Cream Puffs

The original recipe comes from Evan's Macha Eclairs. But instead of making an Eclairs which I am not good a piping the pastry. I had change the recipe slightly a bit to make these cute little Cream Puffs. And most important it's easier for Reyon to eat and more addictive to pop one puff at time.


You can refer the Eclairs recipe from Evan's blog. But this cream puff recipe that I used is different from her Eclair, if you prefer you can also use this recipe to pip the Eclair. As for the Green-Tea Creme Patissiere(just follow the creme recipe and add 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of green-tea powder as your preference), I follow what is given by Evan's on her blog.

Overall this Green-Tea Cream Puff/Macha Eclairs has a very special and unique taste. It's very fragrant because of the green-tea powder and the cream is smooth just having the right texture. If you do like cream puff or eclair, give this recipe a try. You can even change the cream to Mocha, chocolate, mango or etc depend on what you prefer.

Ingredients For Choux Pastry:
120g Butter
120g Flour
185ml Water
3 - 4 Eggs

Methods:
1. Chop the butter and put in a pan with the water. Stir over low heat until melted, then bring to the boil.
2. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and add the flour all at once, beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.
3. Return to the heat and continue to beat for about 2 minutes until the mixture forms a mass, thicken and leaves the side of the pan.
4. Remove from the heat and transfer to the bowl of electric beater; leave to cool for about 5 minutes.
5. Add one egg at a time, beat well between each addition at medium speed until the mixture form a thick, smooth and glossy paste. You may not need to add the egg.(for this recipe i used 3 1/2 eggs, each egg about 55g)
6. Spoon 2 heaped teaspoons of the mixture onto the tray at 5cm interval.
7. Sprinkle with water and bake at a preheat 210 degree oven for 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 180 degree and bake for another 12 - 15 minutes or until the dough is puffed and golden brown.
8. Remove from the oven, cut a slit in the base of each puff and leave it to cool to room temperature before filling it with creme.
9. Spoon the green-tea creme into the piping bag and cut off 1 cm from the end and fill the puff.

Fondant Glaze:
4 Tablespoons Of Icing Sugar
Dash Of Green-Tea Powder
1/2 - 1 Tablespoon Of Water
1 Teaspoon Of Lemon Juice

Methods:
1. Mix the icing sugar, green-tea powder(add more if u want a darker colour) and lemon juice together then slowly stir in the water until you get a thick and spreading consistency.(you may want to add more lemon juice if you don't prefer a too sweet glaze.