Saturday 30 June 2007

Hazelnut Macaron With Durian & Coffee Butter Cream

This is the 3rd times that I have made successful macarons out of the 6 trials. Thing starts to get better each time when I gather more advices and tips from my blog pals. This round, I tried to make the Hazelnut Macaron using the ground hazenut rather than almond and it really taste great with it's nutty flavour.


For this batch, I managed to make the Italain Butter Cream with two different flavour. I divide the cream into two portions and added fresh durian flesh into 1 portion and coffee essence into another.

My dear son loves the Coffee Butter Cream macarons which I also added some extra instant coffee powder into the batter to make the shell fill with more coffee fragrant. Overall I am very happy with this bath of hazelnut macaron and I will continue to experiment with new flavour whenever I get some spare time off from work. Posted by Picasa


Thursday 21 June 2007

Lychee Charlotte Cheesecake

This is a very special fragrant fruity Asian kind of cheesecake that I had never try making before. The very first time I saw this cake is from a blog pal's flicker picture. Then after a few months later, my best pal Tracy make this for her cell-group gathering. Base on what she had told me and feedback from her cell-group members on the cake that she had made. I decided to make one using lychee preserved in canned syrup.


You can use any basic non-baked cheesecake recipe, and just include some chopped lychee in the recipe and reserved some whole lychee on top as decoration. To make your cheesecake more presentable you can used some ready bought sponge cake and cut it into half then soaked one side with some lychee syrup and stick it on the surrounding of the spring form or mousse tin then prepare the biscuit based on top.

I can said, this is a very nice and refreshing cheesecake compare to those that I had made or eaten before. It's neither too sweet or cheesy and with the added whipped cream, it made the texture of the cheesecake more smooth and silky......Posted by Picasa


Sunday 17 June 2007

Assorted Macarons

Wow.. it seems like I am getting Macarons CRAZY these few days. Just like what other bakers do, when you starts to get the hang of it, you seems to be addicted in making them. It like even though you use the same ingredients, but each time you will gets kind of different result for your macarons.


So far I only tried making 4 different Flavours which are Chocolate, Black Sesame and Green Tea. The 4th one which is the Rose scented I was not able to get it done correctly due to the batter consistency. It had spread too much and the end result was very bad just like those 1st few failure batches macarons that I had.

Out of all these assorted macaron, I still loves the Green Tea with Chocolate Ganache. Maybe it's because I love anything with green tea content. Em.... so maybe next weekend then I will try making other flavour if there is still volunteer who want to try. Actually I also love Coffee flavour, maybe I will try to experiment with it too.Posted by Picasa


Thursday 14 June 2007

Green Tea Macaron With Chocolate Ganache

Em... most of you all will be wondering why I also follow the trend on making macaron! Hahaha..... Actually I find it very challenging when you actually achieve something that you always want to make but failure after a few attempt. The moment when you gets the finally product right, the feeling of achievement is nothing that can be bought with. I had 3 total failure batches that can't even be eaten. Then 4th batch is at least something that is presentable and edible.(but I guess like some feedback I had, I might have overbaked it compare to this batch, cos it's very crispy and it won't turn soft even if you leave it in room temperature after sandwich it with cream)


Then finally after more research and gathering of tips from forum pal, I managed to find the Key to successful. The main issue is to DRY the macaron shell completely before baking, and the oven temperature is also very important. Too hot, the shell will crack and no feet develop.

From making these macarons I had tried 3 different recipes from over the blogs that I research which I think that had the easier steps and clear instructions to follow for beginner like me. I just use the normal macaron recipe without the Italian Meringue because I don't have a candy thermometer to measure the boiling point of the sugar syrup. So I won't be able to try out what's the different between a Normal Meringue and Italian Meringue. You might wonder why I don't stick to the same recipe instead of changing one after another, that's because I love to do experiment with my baking. I love to try out what's the different between each recipes even though they called for the same ingredients. Some one o two steps that are different from each recipe will end out having different result. This is the same philosophy as life, if you make a different decision in a matter the result will end up in different way. So why that's why some people will stick to one decision while other might like to change according to the situation.

So after much hard work and failure. Finally I am able to come out of my own macaron. But I still need to practise to perfect on the shape and "feet". Really thank a lot to all those members who provide me with all the valuable information from Imperial Kitchen and my blogger pal Evan. Posted by Picasa


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