Macaron Joy!

I did it !

Macarons...
* Tip-toed feet: check
* Smooth poofy dome: check !
* Yummy pretty baked confectionary clouds... check !!!

Even managed the chocolate ones, that were yummy... with a triple chocolate 'n praline centre... ok, maybe a bit excessive, though it's a celebration of chocolate!Too moreish! :)

Les macarons...

My latest adventure, the intriguing macaron... such a neat little pretty package made of 3 simple ingredients - though has managed to present so many problems and discussions to baking enthusiasts all across the ether...

So how did I fair? Well, it wasn't the success I had hoped for, and will require further attempts. My batter did flow like magma, though was a little worryingly flat when i piped out my little disks. Though after resting them for half an hour to develop the shiny skin, I carely popped them into the oven. After around 8 minutes, I had a flutter of excitement, as I noticed the "feet" slowly emerging. Though this was short lived, as I noticed that the feet were not standing tall and upright, as they began to spread outwards as they were more akin to doing sideway splits. I removed them from the oven and was semi happy with them. They had a nice shiny coat, though I couldn't help but be slightly disappointed in their flat-footedness...

I have since learnt that this could be a combination of the egg-whites not being ages long enough, and/or overmixing... So, will have to try again ! Watch this space!!!

(Yesterday's project - chocolate nest gateaux... Happy Birthday S !)

Shelter's Cake Time

I've been looking forward to Shelter's Cake Time for a while now as I had organised a small event in the office. I signed early this month and got the fund raiser pack filled with posters, stickers, a collection box and recipe suggestions. How cool is that! We decided that one person will bake two batches of cakes/cupcakes for one day of the week. I started first with a batch of carrot cupcakes and orange cupcakes this Wednesday.

[baking late at night]

[I had to take these photos quickly as there were hungry colleague to feed ...Hee! Hee! That explains why someone appears to have poked their finger in one of them...Hee hee hee!]

The carrot cupcakes were all sold out before lunchtime and the orange cupcakes sold out in the afternoon. The little collection box is half full already. What a result!

Anyway today, my lovely colleague and fellow knitter baked a Coffee and Brazil Nuts cake and a Walnut and Date Loaf. The coffee cakes sold out late morning and there is just a teeny bit of the loaf left.

[Left the camera at home so had to use my mobile]

The money will go to Shelter helping homeless people or people facing loosing their home, especially in the current economic situation. I've asked one of my colleague to count the money and will post this later.

Jigglety pigglety

This weekend was a pretty busy one for me, lots of bakes and not enough time !

Mother's day is a wonderful celebration of mum's everywhere! It reminds us all how we probably spend too much time taking our mother's for granted - and allows us this reprieve to show our unspoken gratitude on this one day in March. How easily we are let off for the other 364 days of our careless offspring behaviours... ;)

Mum was treated to the beautiful displays at the orchid show in Victoria this weekend. It was a lot of fun with us girls, me mum and Maria... cheekily pointing out some of the less obviously attractive breeds of orchids in a very childish fashion - think mum enjoyed the day!

Bakes - mum got one of my Swiss apple pies. I have no idea if it is at all swiss, though it got it's name, as it is my version of an apple pie my dad used to get at the old Swiss Centre in Leicester Square. Baring in mind I was pretty young- I don't even remember if I was even 10 when they used to have them - it was always going to be a bit hit 'n miss to see if I could recreate this old gem. It has taken a couple of refinements, though it's not a bad interpretation, considering it is based entirely on a childhood memory. Chunky apple, topped with an almond meringue crust and toasted flaked almonds and lovingly presented on a suitably retro plate.

Alex's mum got something a little different - a little more ornate. I didn't have time to think up a new cake combo, so it was a mixed berries and white chocolate mousse cake for her. Topped with juicy berries... Not a big leap from previous offerings, but it's still kind of pretty, though those darned strawberries - just won't stand up straight and created a slightly wonky border... :)

What's baking...?

It has been a while,though still been busy baking... 

A few new experimentations, many first times, molton chocolate soufflé, pear and almond frangipane. mochi and even tried my hand at sugarpaste roses. :) These made very cute decorations for my citrus cupcakes, not really a fan of sweet sweet icing, though I figured the lemony citrus would cut through the sugar, I think it works... 

Mochi was a different no-bake experiment, I have made them before with varying degrees of success, as the sticky sticky glutinous rice flour is just too fiddly and sticky to handle, though I was hankering for the delicate soft

 texture, so soft and satisfying when you bite into freshy made mochi. Yummy! My fillings: the usual red aduki bean filling, and also made the chinese variety - fresh toasted peanuts, sesame and coconut.

 The contrast of the fragrant crunchy crushed nuts and sesame against the squidgy soft mochiness... mMMmmm... 

80s Healthy Cakes

It's currently half term and I took Monday off to spend some time with my daughter and her friends. On Sunday, we watched Dancing on Ice on television and it was the 80s themes to celebrate the 25th anniversary that Torvill and Dean won the 1984 Winter Olympic with Bolero. Now these kids haven't got a clue what the 80s were about. So I got all excited telling them about Fame, Leg warmers, rara skirts, power ballads, Steve Davis wining the Snooker Championship, Bolero, big perms, the A Team, Care Bears, Tiffany, Aha and men folding their jacket sleeves. I think they found it very amusing. Anyway, I showed them some of the old books from the 80s (my Dad use to work for a book wholesale company and had 40% off the price), when we came across an old cookery book.

This is what we made, a strawberry cream cake, decorated by myself and the kids. I tried to make a healthier version so I reduced the sugar and bought some low fat cream. We only included a tinny weeny amount of butter and milk. I thought it tasted fine, but Mum was not impressed with the low fat cream......I think I may stick with the normal double cream. Do anyone have any suggestions? Low fat cream cheese?

New Year... New Cakes... !

This is my 步步"糕"昇 New Year's Cake... this is a typical chinese greeting at New Years. [Actually, you could use it anytime really when you would wish someone well...] literally translating to "every step high rising". ie. Making ever increasing steps towards success and steady progression.

Cake-dork that I am, I had a bit of a play on the characters to come up with the design 升(=rise), phonetically sounds like 星(=star) hence the rising star design on the chocolate surround... "糕", the word for cake, sounds phonetically like "高" (=high), which is why there are all sorts of puddings/cake-age type dishes served up at new year, to indicate abundance, superiority, things increasing, going up, overflowing I guess... And so, it was... a decadent affair of berries n baileys, nutty praline... homemade chocolate cups, dark and light, dotted with piped ganache swirls and finished with chocolate curls (though I forgot to get a shot of the cake complete with the shavings)...

This one was for dad's birthday... more of the same, though with a toasted hazelnut cream... and properly glazed strawberries so he wouldn't scrunch his nose up at out of season not so sweet strawberries. I did experiment with a nutty meringue, to add an crunch to the filling, though the duvet of cream just rendered it redundant with it's soft embrace, I suppose the only way around that would be to assemble and serve immediately... though then how to get the charlotte fingers to keep a hold onto the cake without time to set to shape... hmmm...?

Secret Santa and More Cupcakes

Every year at the office we have a Secret Santa and I always get such wonderful pressies. I must be a very good girl......Hee! Hee! Last year I was given a small selection of chocolates from Harrods. Yum......I can still remember the taste.. Look what I got this year:

I'm really please with my present...Thank You Santa! I love it. I took it to the office Christmas party (no I'm not that sad to read it at the bar) so I can take it home for the weekend. Considering the amount of alcohol I had I still remembered my book.

This evening I had the urge to bake some cakes, but I didn't have the ingredients to make anything from the book, so I made the usual cupcakes. My daughter was so please to be able to help me as we haven't bake together for a long time. Instead of cream and icing we used melted Belgium milk chocolate and some sprinkles to decorate the cakes. Hasn't my little rascal done well with the decoration. We will be taking some to my Mums and to a good friend who we will be visiting tomorrow.