Sanrio Hanami Dango Vegan Macarons

I am finally done with the first draft of Deco Marshmallows! While waiting for the editor to get back to me with it, I have decided to work one something I have been procrastinating for years---vegan macarons! 

As Sakura season is here, I am inspired by the Hanami dango, which is a traditional Japanese confectionery that announces the arrival of spring. Of course I couldn't resist the chance to make it kawaii with Hello Kitty, My Melody and Keroppi! 

Matcha, strawberry and vanilla white chocolate ganache as filling to match the traditional colours 

Besides vegan macarons with vegan fillings, I took the chance to try out vegan royal icing for some of the fine details.

All credit goes to Meiyee (Instagram account: nm_meiyee) for sharing her vegan recipes. Her work is beautiful, naturally coloured and flavoured! I adapted from her recipes that are shared so I didn't follow exactly what she did but do check out her account for the recipes and to marvel at her work! 

I used bakeable matcha powder with no additional artificial green colouring for the matcha shells and ganache. I added freeze-dried strawberry powder and a tiny bit of bottled strawberry emulsion for strawberry. I used matcha Pocky sticks for the "skewer" (I know it's not vegan but I prefer having everything edible but I didn't want to make the biscuit sticks from scratch too 🙈)

Here are some photos of the process:

Freshly baked shells. I was working on a separate set for future vegan macaron class material at the same time.

I actually rushed through the decoration and didn't manage to finish as I had to go out of the house. This is the works-in-progress decoration with vegan royal icing. Could have been better if I didn't rush

Strawberry, matcha and vanilla vegan white chocolate ganache before whipping it up to lighten the texture.

Filling up the macarons and inserting a matcha Pocky stick

Experienced macaron bakers will be able to tell that I had issues with one of the colours of batter and they would be right! I knew what went wrong and but am confident I can rectify it for the class. After all, this is my first attempt and it was rather ambitious of me to try three colours/flavours of macaron shells in a single batch. The flavour that I left to the last to work on had issues because the meringue needed to be whipped stiffer again and I should have trusted my instincts to do so. Can you tell which one it is? 

I am excited to be able to include vegan macarons as part of my class content after this experiment. Stay tuned for class announcements July onwards for vegan macarons! But note that I won't be teaching the Sanrio characters. 

Check out my Instagram reel for some video snippets of the aquafaba meringue and macaron batter!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqSmIVIAWfe/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

with love,

Phay Shing

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My Melody and Keroppi Roll Cakes

 

Cute Sanrio Animal Roll Cakes! Which one is your favorite? Keroppi or My Melody? 

Watch the video here on the BTS (behind-the-scenes) of making of the rolls! 

I created this recipe using Suncorefoods natural food powders! 

Recipe
4 egg yolks
20g sugar
40g oil
40g milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g cake flour
@suncorefoods red radish, yellow safflower, blue spirulina for the colors

4 egg whites 
50g sugar 
1/4 tsp cream of tartar 

Filling 
200g whipping cream 
Surprise: star chocolate 

Whisk egg yolks with sugar, followed by oil, milk and vanilla. Whisk in flour and divide the batter into 2(red) : 2(light green): 1(plain): 1(dark green). Add food coloring and mix well. 

Whisk egg whites till firm peaks. Divide the meringue as above and fold in. Pipe keroppi the frog and my melody rabbit designs in 8” pans and bake at 150C for 20mins. 

Whip cream till medium peaks. Spread over the cakes, arrange the surprises and roll up. Decorate with chocolate. Enjoy! =) 

With love,

Susanne 

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Around the world with Sanrio Chiffon Cake

This special creation "Around the world with Sanrio" chiffon cake is a special collaboration with Sanrio Singapore to celebrate International Peace day amidst these difficult times 💖.

Our lovable Sanrio characters, Hello Kitty, Little Twin Stars, Keroppi, My Melody, Pom pom purin, Bad batz maru, Cinamaroll, and Gudetama join forces to spread love, peace and unity during these hard times. 

The "Sanrio characters x Susanne Deco Chiffon" online classes were also borne during the difficult COVID times to spread love and family bonding during the stay-home period 💖.  We hope to encourage everyone.

Which Sanrio characters will you hope to see next in my online class? 

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Keroppi Matcha Custard Cream Puff

I made these Matcha Keroppi choux pastries along with the black sesame koala choux pastries :)

Oops! We may be a little sunburnt but we taste awesome! It's better to err on the side of higher temperature than risk letting your pastry case collapse 

I had some leftover matcha cookie dough from making turtle matcha cream puffs so I decided to make more Matcha cream puffs to use up the cookie dough. They taste really yummy anyway so these were very well received. Here's a closer peek at the crisp pastry case cross section and smooth, creamy matcha custard...

You may refer to this post for the recipe for Matcha custard and the matcha cookie dough. Prepare the pastry cream and cookie dough (Craquelin) before you begin working on the Choux pastry case.

Smooth matcha and black sesame custard!

Recipe for Choux pastry case
Ingredients (makes about 14 Keroppi):
75g water
75g milk
75g butter
5g sugar
5g salt
90g bread flour
10g plain flour
150g eggs (approximately 3, lightly beaten)

Note: you may replace all plain flour with bread flour, or some bread flour with plain flour. Plain flour gives the pastry a more tender bite whereas bread flour helps to give more strength to the structure and makes it more crispy

Steps:
1. Sift together plain and bread flour into a bowl. Preheat oven to 180℃ and set oven rack to middle position. Cut out matcha cookie dough into oval shapes, place on baking tray lined with parchment paper and freeze it.

2. Place water, milk, sugar, salt and butter into a saucepan. Bring to a boil while stirring. Remove from heat and pour the flour in all at once. Mix well to make sure all the flour absorb the liquid.

3. Return the dough to cook over medium low heat for about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and continue to knead the dough with a spatula in a bowl to let it cool for a couple of minutes.

4. Gradually add beaten egg and mix well after each addition. The batter is ready when it appears shiny and yet leaves a trough that doesn't collapse when you run a finger across the batter surface.

5. Transfer into piping bag fitted with a Wilton #12 (or larger) tip. Pipe an oval for the head. Gently place the cookie cutout on top of the piped pastry.

I was working on these Matcha Choux at the same time as the koala choux

6. Bake at 180℃ for 20 min. Reduce temperature to 160℃ and bake for another 20 min. Turn off the heat and let it cool for 10 min in the oven. You may sprinkle a little water around the piped batter before baking to help the pastry to rise more in the oven. Pierce the side with toothpick to release any steam. Cool completely on cooling rack. Note that baking temperature and time is dependent on individual ovens. Extend baking time if need be to thoroughly dry out the cases.

Freshly baked Choux pastry case!

I used white candy melts as the eyes and added on the black details using melted dark chocolate with charcoal powder added. Stick the eyes on using melted white chocolate. The rosy cheeks are melted white chocolate with a bit of pink gel food colouring added. Wait for the chocolate to set before filling the shells.

You may fill the pastry case by poking a hole at the bottom and inserting a piping bag filled with custard and fitted with a small piping tip. Best to fill the cases just before consuming so that you can enjoy the texture at its best. This is one of the traditional ways of filling choux pastry cases but I find that sometimes you end up under filling or overfilling the cases. I will share in my subsequent blog posts another way of filling the Choux pastry case that allows you to be absolutely sure that you filled the cases to the max without bursting it, and without making any cuts on the decorated top surface. Stay tuned!

With love,
Phay Shing

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'Froggy' Pandan Salted Egg Yolk Chiffon Cake

I made this Pandan Salted Egg Yolk Chiffon Cake for Kinokuniya and also for party! The interesting flavour was actually requested by my friend. It turned out to be pretty fascinating and yummy, making our pandan chiffon cake more tasty and savoury (think pandan liu sha bao)! So do try it if you are getting bored of our normal pandan chiffon cake =). My friends who tried it said it was the softest chiffon cake ever!

Christmas came early! I received my first-ever kitchen machine - Chef Sense XL from Kenwood! Finally I can whip large volumes of meringue with ease without getting an arm ache and overheating problems. This cool mixer can whip up to 6.7 litres of meringue, a cool 16 egg whites! It’s a dream come true as I often make big cakes. It whips up soft fluffy meringue at less than half the time I usually take with a hand mixer. Not only that, I can multitask while the machine is faithfully doing its job. The meringue quality is also finer and smoother as compared to a hand mixer for large volumes, maybe because of the overheating issues with the hand mixer. Another really cool thing is the slim design of the mixer that requires really little space in my tight kitchen. The machine also comes with a dough hook for bread and a K-beater for mixing creamy cake/biscuit batter. More things to try in the future!


Recipe for:

Pandan Salted egg yolk chiffon (17-cm chiffon tube pan)
3 egg yolks
20g castor sugar
41g vegetable/corn oil
51g milk
60g prima cake flour
¼ tsp baking powder (optional)
1/5 tsp salt
2 salted duck egg yolks (boiled and mashed into fine crumbs)
1 tsp pandan paste
¼ tsp vanilla extract

Meringue
4 egg whites
45g castor sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar

1. Boil 2 salted duck eggs (or you can buy those vacuum packed boiled ones if you are lazy). Mash salted egg yolks with the back of a spoon into fine crumbs.

2. Preheat oven to 160°C. Prepare a 17-cm tube pan.

3. Prepare egg yolk batter for salted egg yolk chiffon. First whisk egg yolks with sugar, then oil, milk, pandan paste and vanilla extract. Sift flour and salt into salted duck egg yolks, mix well and then sieve/push the flour-salted duck egg yolks into egg yolk batter and mix well.

4. Prepare meringue: whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy. Add in ½ castor sugar for meringue and whisk at high speed till soft peaks form. Add in rest of the castor sugar for meringue and whisk till firm peaks form, or just the point of stiff peak.

5. Fold meringue gently into egg yolk batter gently 1/3 at a time.

6. Pour the batter into tube pan, tap on counter top or run a chopstick to remove air bubbles and then bake at 160°C. for 15 min then 140°C. for 31 min, or until skewer inserted comes clean.

7. Allow to cool inverted fully before unmoulding by hand (see video tutorial ‘Hand unmoulding Chiffon cakes for a clean finishing’).


Using my Kenwood mixer, I can whip by a 9 egg recipe (9 eggs, 12 whites), hands-free and faster!

Adding in the castor sugar in two additions.

The meringue increases 5-fold but doesn’t overflow the deep bowl.

Some tips: I find it useful to to pulse the mixer once at full speed after adding in the sugar to mix well, before turning the knob back to settings '4' for smoother meringue.

The pandan salted egg yolk chiffon recipe gives a lovely light green hue. I decorated the chiffon cake with some cake cut-outs into a cute froggy, using melted marshmallows as glue.

Hope this lovely creations brightens up your day, and do try it! =)

With lots of love,
Susanne


Links to:
Chef Sense XL
Deco Chiffon Cakes - Christmas promos/updates


*NEW*

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Keroppi Matcha Macarons with Azuki Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream

I made these for fun along with Hello Kitty macarons. Originally intended to be given to my kids but they were all snapped up by the lady who requested for Keroppi cookies!  Presenting my totally naturally coloured and flavoured Matcha Keroppi macarons with Azuki bean swiss meringue buttercream (smbc)!

I was getting muddled after piping 90 Hello Kitty macaron shells and seeing stars by the end of drawing 45 Kitty faces so I didn't do a very good job for Keroppi. I piped the same pattern for both top and bottom shells so Keroppi ended up having exposed eyeballs at the back of the head :p. Should have piped plain green shells for bottom shells. Keroppi's mouth wasn't drawn on too well even though it's just a "V". Anyway, glad that they are still recognizable!

Here's the template I used. I only made 15 shells.

I will share the recipe for a larger batch of macarons for your convenience.

Ingredients (about 40-45 Keroppi macarons, 80-90 shells):
200g icing sugar
200g superfine almond meal/ ground almond
200g caster sugar
75ml water
80g x2 egg whites, preferably aged
10g Matcha powder, preferably high grade

Steps:
1. Sift almond meal with icing sugar. Add 80g of egg whites and mix well to form the mass. Portion out a quarter of the mass and leave it plain. Add sifted matcha powder to the remaining 3/4 of the mass.

2. Prepare the Italian meringue and fold in 1/4 and 3/4 of it in two batches to the respective masses. Please refer to this post for the details on how to prepare the Italian meringue and macaron batter. Refer to this post for video tutorials of the macaronage process.

3. Pipe the batter onto the trays with a 5-6 mm round tip. Remember to pipe plain green shells for the bottom shells. For Keroppi's face, pipe the eyes first, followed by a rounded green rectangle for the face. Tap the tray on the table a few times to release trapped air bubbles.

Freshly piped!

4. Bake at 130°C for 17-22 minutes at the lowest rack position, rotating the tray halfway through baking. Extend the baking time if the shells are still stuck to the baking sheet. Cool the shells for 5 minutes before removing from the tray.

Freshly baked!

5. Add on rosy cheeks and blacks of eyes. I drew on the mouth with edible marker. I used natural sourced pink food colouring (Queen's) to colour the rosy cheeks and charcoal to colour black. Make sure that the icing is completely dry before filling them.

Freshly iced!

Azuki bean swiss meringue buttercream
250g smbc*
150g Azuki bean paste (I used Tsubuan which has some whole beans in the paste)

* Recipe for basic smbc can be found here. The addition of a bit of lemon juice helps to reduce the level of sweetness.

Mix Azuki bean paste into smbc. Rewhip smbc first if you are using frozen-thawed smbc.

Spoon the cream onto the bottom shells. My cream has whole beans in there so it can't be piped easily. Place the top shell on. Refrigerate the macarons in airtight container for at least 24h before serving. Let the macarons rest at room temperature for a few minutes before consuming.

All packed!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Keroppi Shortbread Cookies (icing-free, naturally coloured and made without specialized cookie cutters!)

I have a request for Keroppi cookies and I decided to make them naturally coloured and icing-free!

I was about to make the same old favorite brown sugar cookies with royal icing. On the day that I decided to bake, I thought why not take the chance to bake something healthier since Keroppi is a very good candidate for this type of cookie with simple colours and shapes.

If kids were not consuming the cookies, I would jump at the chance to colour the cookies green using Matcha powder. Since this is not the case, I used a natural source of food colouring that makes use of cholorphyll to colour the dough. A teeny bit of gel food colouring was added as natural sources of food colouring tends to be a bit dull. Here's a photo of the natural sources of colouring that I used (charcoal powder not shown), and the simple tools I used to help to create the shape of Keroppi without a store-bought specialized cookie cutter.

Needle, round cutters, straw, homemade plastic template and natural food colouring

I made use of homemade template made out of clear plastic files for cutting out the Keroppi shape on the dough, and for positioning the various facial features.

I used a modified version of Kenneth Goh's easy to remember shortbread recipe with 1:2:3 as the ratio of icing sugar: butter:flour.

Ingredients (makes about twenty 5-6cm cookies):
Green dough
50g icing sugar
100g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces (Use a good brand please! How good shortbread tastes depends on quality of butter.)
22g corn flour
128g minus 1 tsp plain flour
1 tsp Queen's natural green powder food colouring (sifted because it's lumpy)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
Teeny bit of green gel food colouring

Plain, pink and black dough
20g icing sugar
40g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
8g corn flour
52g plain flour
Pinch of salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp Charcoal powder
1/2 tsp Queen's natural pink food colouring
Pink gel food colouring (optional but you may add a teeny bit to brighten up the colours a bit)

If you are using matcha, replace 2 tsp of plain flour with same amount of Matcha powder.

Steps:
1. Sift flours (and green powder/ matcha powder), sugar and salt together. Add butter and rub in with finger tips. Add vanilla extract and knead until a ball of dough forms.

2. Add gel food colouring if you would like slightly brighter colours. Just a teeny bit will do if you are already using the natural colour sources. Portion the non-green dough in this approximate manner
Pink: 15g
Black:15g
Plain: 90g

3. Roll the dough between two baking sheets until 5 mm thick for green, 3mm thick for plain dough and 2-3 mm thick for pink and black dough. Chill the dough in the fridge or freezer for at least 30 minutes.

4. Use the template and a small knife to cut out the green dough. Line on baking tray. These don't expand much after baking so you may place them pretty close. Use a needle to trace the rosy cheeks and mouth with the help of the template.

Can't really see the needle marks but they are there.

5. On a separate tray, cut out the eyes using a round cookie cutter. Trace the position of the blacks of the eyes onto the whites using a needle and template. Use the straw to cut out the blacks of the eyes and attach to the whites. Chill the tray.

6. When the eyes have firmed up, carefully remove from baking tray and stick onto the face.

7. Cut out the cheeks with small round cutter or straw. Stick them on.

8. Finally cut some black dough for the mouth. This was tedious as I manually cut each black strand out. You may want to pipe/paint on the mouth after baking using a mixture of cocoa powder and charcoal powder mixed with hot water to form a paste.

Tips:
-use freezer packs as your work surface to keep the dough rigid for a longer time.
- divide the dough into two portions before rolling it out such that at any time, you have a thoroughly chilled portion of dough to work with as the scraps from the other portion is gathered and rerolled.

9. Chill the tray of assembled Keroppis while preheating the oven to 150°C. Bake for about 15-17 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through baking. Watch the cookies carefully. As soon as the base is a little brown, they are done. You don't want to brown Keroppi's face too much.

Freshly baked!

10. Let the cookies cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack to cool completely.

All packed!

Store in airtight container in a cool, dry place. Shortbread that has salt added can keep for a few weeks and tastes better with age.

Update: the recipient loved these cookies and loved the fact that they are not too sweet :).

Another update: I have another request for Keroppi shortbread cookies. This time I added the mouth after baking with charcoal coloured royal icing. Much easier to work with :p. Here are some freshly baked cookies...

With love,
Phay Shing

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Keroppi Pandan Salted Egg Custard Steamed Buns (very runny naturally coloured 流沙包!!)

My kids are requesting for baos again! After a hiatus of a few months, I finally have time to return to my first love in the "baking" arena. In my quest to find the right balance of soft fluffy bao skin and really runny salted egg custard filling, I have tweaked the recipe or preparation conditions quite a few times. I usually succeed in getting fluffy and soft baos but the filling is rather thick and not as runny as the ones you get at restaurants although the taste is pretty close. I am glad to say that I think I have found the right balance this time and the kids agree that this is the best batch of liu sha baos I have made so far!

Here's a closer look at the awesome runniness and fluffiness...

And it remains runny even after freezing and resteaming!

All the colouring you see are from natural ingredients. Since the filling contains coconut milk, pandan flavoured bao skin compliments it very well.

My kids helped with preparing the pandan juice :)

Prepare pandan juice by blending about 20-25 pandan leaves in 100ml of water and squeezing out the juice from the pulp wrapped in a cloth coffee filter. Cutting the leaves, blending and squeezing out the juice is so simple that kids can help. You may choose to let the juice settle overnight and use the dark green portion that settled at the bottom but it is not absolutely necessary.

Recipe for liu sha filling
I mentioned in my previous liu sha bao post that I will attempt liu sha baos again with an increase in liquid content and decrease in solidifying agent to make the filling more runny.

Ingredients (makes 9 baos):
2 (or 3) salted egg yolks, cooked and mashed with fork
40g unsalted butter, softened
32g icing sugar
10g custard powder
30g milk powder
32g coconut milk

Steps:
1. Mix butter and sugar together until well combined. Add all other ingredients and mix well. Sieve the mixture to break up the big lumps of salted egg yolk as well as removing any bits that can't be broken up.

3. Chill in the fridge until firm, about 1h or overnight. Portion into individually cling wrapped balls of 17g and freeze it. This can be prepared a day ahead of time.

My kids sampled the leftover filling in the bowl and gave it a thumbs up!

Recipe for bao skin and assembly
The recipe for bao skin is similar to the one I have always used with a slight difference in proportion of dry and wet ingredients.

Ingredients:
160g Hong Kong bao flour
20g cornflour
25g caster sugar
A pinch of salt
1 tsp instant dry yeast
1/6 tsp baking powder dissolved in 1/2 tsp of water/pandan juice
1/16 tsp ammonia bicarbonate (optional)
90g pandan juice/water
11g vegetable shortening (You may replace with vegetable oil or butter. But I find the skin drier with vegetable oil and butter lends a noticeable flavour to the bao skin. If you prefer buttery skin, do use butter :)).
Any other required food colouring

*Use one-fifth to one-quarter of the recipe to make the dough for Keroppi's features. Or if you are lazy, simply colour some green dough white/pink/black with gel food colouring for the features.

Steps:
1. Mix the first 5 ingredients in a bowl. Add pandan juice (or water if you are making plain dough for Keroppi features) and mix with a wooden spoon until a dry dough forms.

2. Dissolve baking powder and ammonium bicarbonate in 1/2 tsp of water/pandan juice.

See how it bubbles!

Gradually add the baking powder mixture into the dough by kneading it in.

3. Pour the dough onto a non-stick mat and gradually knead in the shortening. Continue kneading for 15-20minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic and passes the windowpane test. You may let a stand mixer or breadmaker help you with the kneading but I prefer doing it by hand as I can feel the dough taking shape.

4. Proof the dough in a large bowl/measuring jug covered with cling wrap until almost doubled in size. About 25-30 minutes in hot Singapore or about 3 hours in the fridge. Punch down the dough and knead a few times to expel the trapped air.

5. Portion out the dough and add any food colouring at this point. I prepared the pandan and plain dough separately. I found some powdered food colouring from plant sources. All natural!

Available at Cold Storage in Malaysia but sadly not seen in Singapore.

I used the pink powder to colour the dough for Keroppi's cheeks.
Portion out the dough in this manner:
Green dough: 30g each bao
White dough: 3g for each eye
Pink dough: 7g for all the cheeks
Black dough: 12-15g for all eyes and mouth

I actually didn't prepare the black dough but did the lazy way of painting on the black parts with charcoal powder dissolved in water after the baos were steamed. This is fine provided you don't accidentally smudge it. I have painted on black features in the middle of steaming the baos before using charcoal dissolved in egg yolk but this method may not be suitable for liu sha baos which are temperature and time sensitive during the steaming process.

Important note: keep any resting portions of dough wrapped in the fridge to avoid over-proofing as you are portioning, colouring and assembling.

I love the natural green hue!

6. Lightly flour your work surface with bao flour. Take a ball of green dough and flatten it. Place a frozen ball of filling in the middle and wrap it, pinch sealing the dough. Place the assembly seam side down on a piece of baking paper. Add on the features. In order to stick on the cheeks, pinch out a bit of pink dough and stick onto the bao. With a lightly floured finger, gently flatten the pink balls onto the bao surface as shown below.

7. Proof for about 35 minutes at room temperature (about 28°C in the kitchen in Singapore) before steaming at high heat for 6 minutes. Make sure that the water is at a roiling boil. Turn off the heat and let the baos rest in the covered wok/ steamer for 3 minutes before opening the cover. Do not over steam the baos as they may explode or the filling will not be as runny.

Baos are best eaten freshly steamed. If you are not consuming immediately, freeze the baos in ziplock bags after they have cooled completely. Resteam for 11-12 minutes without defrosting before consuming.

Not exactly the prettiest looking but we are yummy!

My kids had much fun eating these! Because the filling was so drippy, they pulled off the eyeballs and dipped in the filling to eat!

With lots of love,
Phay Shing

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