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.

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......

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.

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.

My Without Feet Macarons

Wow..... finally after so many tried and error, I managed to get my macaron a decent look and sandwich it with cream and give it a bite. Although I still have not master the perfect macaron with those little "feet" that original macaron had. I still already very happy with my end result, at least it's getting better each tried.


This round, I used another recipe that is different from the previous 3 unsuccessful macaron. I got this easy and well explained recipe from Tamami's blog through a forum. I have half her recipe and managed to come up with about 8 macarons which measure around 1.5". I had pipe the macaron batter on a Silicon Baking Sheet instead of the normal baking paper as from some comments it shows that Silicon sheets do give better "feet".

I bake these macaron at 160 degree for about 10 minutes then removed, leave it aside to cool then sandwich half of them with chocolate cream and the other half with peanut cream.

My son and mum loves both the favour but their find that the peanut cream goes better with this almond macaron shell. I guess it because of the almond taste. The case is very crunchy and chewy and I am very happy with the end result. So I will continue to carry out the experiment until I find a good way to develop the "feet" so that I can make a perfect macaron too......

Double Chocolate Chips Cookies With Nestum

This is Reyon's favourite Chocolate Chips cookies that had a mixture of Black and White Mini Chocolate Chips together with Nestum. The texture of this cookie is very crunchy due to the adding of the Nestum. You use any kind of chocolate chips, chopped dark chocolate or even with some extra nuts to create different favour and texture.


The recipe is introduce to me by my best blog pal Tracy, but I had used only half of the original recipes to make and add in some extra RUM for some extra fragrant.

Ingredients: (make about 30 - 35, 3cm cookies)
90g Light Brown Sugar
90g Unsalted Butter, cubes
95g Plain Flour
1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder
50g Nestum(instant cereal)
50g Mini Chocolate Chips
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence
Pinch Of Salt
1/2 Egg, Light Beaten

Methods:
1. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl and set aside for later use.
2. Cream butter and sugar till pale, beat in egg, vanilla essence and RUM(if using) until well combined about 1 minute on medium speed.
3. Fold the flour mixture into the ready butter mixture.
4. Next stir in Nestum and Chocolate Chips with wooden spoon or spatula.
5. Drop teaspoonful of dough onto baking tray lined with baking paper and bake for 15 - 20 minutes at a preheated 180 degree oven till slightly browned at the edge.



Notes:
a) I added about 1/2 Teaspoon Of RUM liquor to give the cookies an extra fragrant.
b) Nestle Nestum can be found in most local supermarket under the cereal or coffee/tea session.

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.