Starry Wonderment Macaron & Cookie Creation

"Make something with as many stars as possible, and a moon, and maybe a pig. Because the recipient said she wants to be surrounded by stars." 

If you were given a task like this, how would you put it into a picture? This was my take on it using cookie and macaron as my medium of expression 😊. 

Matcha hojicha flavoured macarons and hojicha cookie tree! As usual, my bakes are fondant-free and this has minimal inedible items included. 

I wanted to create everything in macaron at first but thought it is too risky due to the fairly thin parts on the tree skeleton structure. I decided to use my default cookie base for construction projects to ensure a sturdier support structure is present without having to use inedible dowels. The recipe is tweaked a little by replacing the cornflour with plain flour for a sturdier structure, and hojicha and cocoa powder added for a darker colour. I adapted my cookie template from Jennifer Maker. 

Recipe for Hojicha cocoa cookie

Ingredients :

114g unsalted butter

100g caster or brown sugar 

1 egg (51g without shell) 

285g plain flour

1/4 tsp salt

1tsp vanilla extract

1 tbs hojicha powder

1 tsp cocoa powder

Steps:

Please refer to this post for the steps. I rolled the dough to 4mm thickness before cutting the tree shape out. Add milk a little at a time if the dough is too dry and crumbly. Add flour a little at a time if too sticky and soft to work with. 

I used the Swiss meringue method recipe for the macaron shells. 

Undecorated macaron shells

I used pink lustre dust to create some of the intermediate shades of pink for the macaron stars. 

I used edible marker, lustre dust and royal icing for adding the details on the pig, moon and star. 

I used a mixture of hojicha and matcha ganache for the fillings. I added some crunchy chocolate balls for the large base macaron shell, which is around 14cm in diameter. 

Hojicha ganache, matcha ganache and crunchy chocolate balls. 

The assembled base looks pretty on its own! 

I filled the moon and stars with hojicha ganache. The stars are glued to the tree with hojicha ganache.

But before I glued the stars on, I had to take a photo of the tree on the base! It looks like something out of a children's picture storybook! I used stiff royal icing to secure the cookie tree to the base macaron. It is sturdy enough so no dowels are needed. I just reinforced the cookie structure with some royal icing on the back surfaces of the cookies. 

With love, 

Phay Shing

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Stained Glass Brown Sugar Cookies

This is the second in my series of cookie baking classes for kids. Stained glass brown sugar cookies!

This concept is not new and you may find resources from the internet to make these. But what I am going to share is my awesome brown sugar cookie recipe that I have used over the years, receiving rave reviews for its taste. It will be a great family bonding time between children and a parent too, making these beautiful treats in time for Christmas. Do note that the actual shape of the cookies may differ from what is shown in the picture depending on availability of cookie cutters for the class.

Children between the ages of 5-12 years old are welcome to join. Do apply as soon as you can as places are limited. Please register over here for the class.

With love,
Phay Shing

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Astronaut 'Galaxy' Chiffon Cake

My humble attempt at a "Galaxy" chiffon cake, inspired by the "milky way"! My humble video of my Galaxy chiffon cake can be found here! Since Father's day was coming, I thought to post on cake on a 'Super man' in space! Actually I was trying to depict an Astronaut who had just conquered the moon lol.. Thank God cake was well-received!

Thank God for the 'Super dads' we have! I am on holiday break, so will be slightly slower in my replies, please bear with me! =)

With lots of love,
Susanne

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'Unicorn-Rainbow Shooting Star' Pink Ombre Chiffon Cake

This was made in Sept for my dear friend's girl Becca who was in love with my Rainbow Unicorn Pink Ombre Chiffon Cake. I combined the Pink ombre chiffon with Unicorn, with Rainbow shooting stars from my daughter's cake to create a new 'Unicorn-Rainbow shooting stars Pink ombre chiffon' - I know, very mouthful! haha!

This will be another short post as I'm still having difficulty juggling, sorry about it!

With lots of love,
Susanne


Some of you may already know about the Deco Chiffon Cakes book event on 22nd Oct (below), do come support if you can..

I will be doing a live demo on how to make a cute 3-eye monster from chiffon cake, which will be followed by cake tasting and book signing. The event is open to public and no registration is required. So come on down for a free and fun afternoon on 22nd Oct, Sat, 4pm, Kinokuniya, Ngee Ann City!

Deco Chiffon Cakes Kinokuniya book event

Thanks for your support!

*Updates:

- Good news for Malaysians, Deco Chiffon Cakes will hit bookstores late Oct and can already be purchased online at Kinokuniya MY.

- In SG, Popular will be restocking this week, meanwhile the book is still available at Kinokuniya and Times.

- Good reviews! 

Reviews for Deco Chiffon Cakes have been that the book is very detailed! It has an extended basic section and a 6-page detailed troubleshooting guide specially for Creative chiffon techniques.

- Book event giveaway
I'm giving away one last copy of Deco Chiffon Cakes during my book event. Contest on my Instagram here.

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Sportscar Inverted Rainbow Pinata Chiffon Cake

This Sportscar Rainbow Chiffon with Shooting Stars is the marrying of the chiffon Sportscar with the Shooting Stars Inverted Rainbow Chiffon. I had some experience with the carving of a sportscar from the previous cake so this is somewhat a lookalike model =p. The base is a pastel rainbow chiffon cake but with yellow layers on top for a more boyish look (instead of pink). Made with lots of love, thankful it was well-received.

Love,
Susanne

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Shooting Stars Rainbow Orange Chiffon Cake

Twinkle, twinkle, little star

How I wonder what you are :)

This is big rainbow chiffon cake with colorful shooting rainbow stars for a little boy turning 2 years old! The chiffon cake is made of rainbow colors as his mum likes colorful but rearranged to have yellow as the top as we thought pink would be too girly for a boy. His first word was 'star' so his parents decided to theme his birthday 'star'!

The rainbow chiffon cake is orange flavored and I used the same recipe as my Little Twin Stars Rainbow Orange Chiffon Cake except that I have rearranged the colors yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue and green (from top to bottom). In addition, I have added orange zest in for stronger flavor. I have also pre-baked an orange star topper and several rainbow-colored layer cakes (orange chiffon, 1 egg yolk recipe each) to cut out stars of rainbow colors as well as his name.

And yes, it's another pinata cake! This time I hid some colorful surprise inside the cake ^_^. Here's another look at the 'boyish' rainbow layers!

Happy birthday to Jonathan!

With love,
Susanne

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