Chiffon cake inspired by Valentine's day Pusheen with a Giant heart candy! It was love at first sight when I first saw it!
Sending some love and hugs to everyone in the midst of this difficult time.. and truly we are very thankful for all the brave healthcare workers on the frontline. A big thank you..
This is a bake I squeezed in for a young lady who is a fan of Gudetama and also suffers from depression, hoping it would bring her some cheer for the moment. The concept of this bake was inspired by the first episode of season one of Sugar Rush, the baking competition. On that episode, one of the contestants made "egg on toast" for the confections round of the competition but the egg yolk was spherified pineapple curd on top of egg white (milk panna cotta), midori buttercream with marshmellows and a coconut pound cake (the "toast"). I was so totally amazed by how realistic the "egg yolk" looked and saved the idea in my memory until there was a chance to use it. So here it is! My version of "egg on toast"! Spherified lemon curd on vanilla panna cotta and lavender vanilla bean chiffon cake!
Just to show you how cool it is, I made a video of how the spherified curd is like but the curd and panna cotta are resting on an actual slice of bread because I didn't make extra "toast".
You can pick the "yolk" up and finally pierce it to let the inner goodness ooze out when you had enough fun poking at it! I know it looks awfully cruel 🤣
This bake looks simple but it has quite a few elements to prepare.
Gudetama's facial features are made from something inspired by Yuni Sweets, one of the queens of patterned deco roll cakes. I used her simple recipe for the patterned parts of the roll cake to create Gudetama's face.
Recipe for Gudetama's facial features
Ingredients:
10g unsalted butter, room temperature
10g icing sugar
10g cake flour
10g egg whites
Charcoal powder
White gel food colouring
Steps:
1. Place template of Gudetama on baking tray. Line tray with teflon sheet or parchment paper. Lightly grease the surface with oil and paper towel. Preheat oven to 150°C.
2. Place butter, sugar, flour and egg whites in a small mixing bowl. Whisk together until smooth.
3. Divide the batter into 2 and add charcoal powder to one portion and white colouring to the other. I didn't measure but instead add a bit at a time until desired shade is reached.
4. Transfer each coloured batter into piping bag and cut a small hole at the end. Pipe the black parts, followed by the white part. Use a toothpick to nudge the batter where necessary.
5. Bake in oven for 6-7min or until batter appears dry. Cool completely on tray before storing in airtight condition. You may prepare this a day or two ahead of time.
* to prepare lavender milk, heat 40g of milk with 1-1.5tsp of dried lavender flowers until the milk just starts to bubble. Let it steep for 10 min. Strain out the flowers and measure out 28g.
Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 140°C and set rack to second lowest position. Line bottom of baking tray with parchment paper but leave the walls unlined.
2. Prepare egg yolk batter. In a mixing bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar together until pale and thick. Add oil and whisk untik combined. Add milk, lavender oil, vanilla and salt and whisk until combined. Gradually sift in flour and cocoa powder and whisk until no trace of flour is seen.
3. Prepare the meringue. Place egg whites and cream of tartar in a clean metal bowl. Beat with electric mixer until firm peaks or just reach stiff peaks, gradually adding sugar once the egg whites are foamy.
4. Quickly but gently fold meringue into egg yolk batter in three additions. Pour into prepared baking tin. Tap the tin on the table a few times or run a chopstick around to pop air bubbles.
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Turn the temperature up to 170°C and bake for another 5-10min. This is to brown the exterior of the cake to make the "crust" of the toast. Usually I leave a tray of water at the base of the oven but I omit for this bake as I want the browning to happen. Note that time and temperature is oven dependemt so adjust accordingly.
6. Cool the cake upright. Carefully unmould the sides by hand or with the help of a spatula. Slice the cake till it is about 3cm tall. Carefully remove part of the crust at the flat face of the cake by gently rubbing off crumbs of the cake to create the toast pattern. It is optional to do so for the middle of the cake since the egg is going to cover it but I did it anyway for fun!
Did I totally fool you with this 😉?
Store the cake in airtight container until ready to assemble. You may wish to brush the surfaces of the cake with vanilla flavoured simple syrup to moisten it if you wish as I purposely baked until dry on the surface for the toasted look. The cake will still not be awfully dry when you eat as it is eaten with panna cotta and lemon curd
I made more lemon curd and panna cotta than necessary so I placed them into cups for a refreshing pudding dessert for my kids.
Recipe for panna cotta
Ingredients:
200g heavy cream
200g fresh milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
40g caster sugar
6g gelatin sheets (3 sheets) **
Some ice water in a bowl**
**you may use powdered gelatin. If using this instead, scatter same weight of gelatin powder over 50g of cold milk or water to bloom for 10 min before microwaving and stirring to dissolve the gelatin.
Steps:
1. Soak gelaton sheets in ice water for 10 min. In the mean time, place all other ingredients in saucepan and heat and whisk until sugar dissolves.
2. Continue heating the cream and milk mixture until it just starts to bubble at the edges. Remove from heat. Squeeze excess water out from gelatin sheets. Add into saucepan and whisk until dissolved.
3. Pour the mixture into cups/moulds. I prepared acetate sheet rings with cling wrap at the bottom for the "egg white" portion of the fried egg. Sorry I didn't take any photos of it as I was working close to midnight for this part.
4. Chill overnight in the fridge or at least 4 h.
Spherfied lemon curd
I used this blog post as my reference for the spherificarion process.
Ingredients :
240g lemon curd (replace lime with lemon from recipe)
30g water
6g calcium chloride
800g + extra 500g distilled water
4g sodium alginate
Steps:
1. Prepare lemon curd.
2. Dissolve calcium chloride in water but whisking them together.
I added a little turmeric to the lemon curd to make it a deeper yellow shade but you won't taste it at all
3. Add calcium chloride solution into lemon curd and whisk well. Transfer into silicone hemispherical mould. I used the 4cm diameter one
4. Freeze overnight or for 2 hours at least until very firm.
5. In the mean time, prepare sodium alginate solution. Scatter sodium alginate in 800g water in a glass loaf pan (or any other shallow tray). Use a blender to blend until no more gel lumps left. You may find it easier to do this in a measuring jug and then sieve the solution into the loaf pan but I was lazy to wash more things. Set aside to settle for 2h until solution turns totally clear.
Preparing sodium alginate solution
6. When the solution is ready and lemon curd is frozen, prepare another bath of distilled water for rinsing the spheres. Pop the frozen spheres into alginate solution, a few at a time. Gently agitate the spheres in the solution for about 3 min. Remove with slotted spoon and rinse in distilled water before draining over paper towel and carefully depositing on top of panna cotta. You may find it helpful to dig out a small cavity in the panna cotta such that the "egg yolk" can sit nicely on it without sliding around.
Add on the facial features and you are done!
Keep the assembled creation in the fridge for up to 3 days. The spherified curd I made can survive for up to 3 days stored although what I have read so far for spherified juices needed to be consumed within a day. The spheres I made can remain intact and burst with oozy goodness even on the third day!
I recommend smearing the burst curd all over the cake/ panna cotta and eat together with panna cotta for a well balanced flavour as the addition of calcium chloride to lemon curd makes it sharper than it originally is.
We just said goodbye to the Year of the Pig but that doesn't stop me from making these cute piggy choux pastries!
"We have piggitude!"
I had a request to make some simple pig choux pastries but they should sport different facial expressions. I have made and taught pig choux pastry a year ago but I decided to inject a bit more life to them by giving them a range of expressions and changing the design of the ears a little.
You may refer to this post for detailed recipe of the craquelin and choux pastry batter. I coloured the batter and craquelin with some white powder colouring, orange and pink gel food colouring to create the peach colour. There is a step that I do slightly differently from the past, which is to use metal guides for rolling out the craquelin. I find this method results in more evenly thick craquelin than using the softer silicone guides that came with the rolling pin. I bought these 2.38mm thick metal guides from an art supplies store (Art Friend in Singapore)
Rolling out craquelin with metal guides.
As usual, I recommend using perforated mats for baking the main case. Craquelin: 3cm diameter, piped batter:2.5cm diameter
Piped ears and snout. These are baked at 170°C for about 12 to 15min.
I cut a hole at the base of the pastry case this way to thoroughly dry out the insides at a 140°C oven for 20 min. This ensures that the pastry cases remains crisp. Don't discard the small round cutout. You may cover back the hole after filling the pastry cases
You may refer to this post for video tutorial on how you can assemble a choux pastry character.
You may refer to this post for the chocolate pastry cream recipe that is rich flavour, light in texture but not too sweet.
If you have not tried your hand at making deco choux pastries, do give it a try! I love choux pastries for it's lower sugar content but rich flavours and wonderful textures! Remember to fill the pastries only just before consuming so your pastry cases remain crisp!
This is inspired by their Surprise plush - Winter Wonderland!
Another exciting Pusheen news, "Let's Bake! A Pusheen Cookbook", a collaboration between the creator of Pusheen, Claire Belton and myself is coming in June! It's filled with sweet treats of all kinds, for all levels of bakers! You can preorder a copy of the book here.
Also praying for the Wuhan virus situation.. everyone please stay healthy!
Hot on the heels of Chinese New Year is Valentine's Day so many macaron bakers are looking at making heart macarons for sale. I am part of a wonderful Facebook group called All Things Macarons and I know from there that there are some things that bakers would love to know about making heart shaped macarons. I happen to be teaching this for Culinary Arts Ministry in church so I have decided to do a detailed documentation of making heart shaped macarons. (Update: this event is cancelled due to the coronavirus spread. But I hope this post will be helpful to bakers. Stay safe everyone! Practice sensible hygiene and trust God to take care of us!) Although I have a rather comprehensive post done about 3 years ago over here, I have revised the French method recipe to one that dries faster and is so "failproof" that I use it for Junior chef classes. Many bakers also want to know how to get that beautiful deep shade of red so I am introducing a colouring which I use now that is better than the standard Americolor or Wilton ones. Presenting my humble raspberry dark chocolate heart macarons!
The colour of these hearts are not as deep because I made these concurrently with other macarons and so I didn't use the awesome red powder colouring here. I made these for the event ad much earlier.
Here are the templates for hearts of different sizes. For Culinary Arts Ministry, I will be using the template with smaller hearts as we have limited time and oven spaces. Each template can be scaled to an A4 size paper.
Regular sized hearts
Mini hearts
I used to need to add many drops of gel food colouring in order to achieve a deep shade of red. But now that I discovered what "Ah Ma" (grandmother in the Chinese Hokkien dialect) used to colour things like red eggs or ang ku kueh works many times better than Wilton or Americolor, I am going to stick with it. All I needed to add was 1/4 tsp of the red powder per egg white worth of recipe for macaron batter to achieve a super deep and bright red!
You can find this at supermarkets like Sheng Shiong in Singapore or perhaps Chinese or Asian grocery stores in other countries
I will share the French method recipe here although you can use your preferred method.
Recipe for red macaron batter (French method, makes about 20 small heart macarons (40 shells) or 12 regular hearts (24 shells) ) Ingredients: Meringue
35g egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar (optional, for stabilising egg whites)
32g icing sugar (with cornflour added)
1/2tsp cornflour
1/8tsp fine salt (optional)
Notes:
I added cornflour to stabilize the meringue as well as help the shells dry faster and be sturdier. Do note that this will cause the shells to be chewier in texture as well so give the filling at least 3 to 4 days to mature with the shells in the fridge before consuming, or brush the bottoms of baked shells with unwhipped heavy cream before filling to speed up maturing process.
Raspberry powder and cocoa powder are added for dulling the bright red colour a little as well as to temper the sweetness level of the macaron shells.
I am introducing oven drying here but you may choose to rest the piped batter in the open or in aircon room.
Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 65°C, top and bottom heat only. Set rack to second lowest position. Line baking tray with template and parchment paper.
2. Sift together all the dry ingredients. You may want to weigh out about 3g extra almond as some grains may have difficulty passing through the sifter. Do not press the mix hard through the sieve as it will cause oils from the almond to come out and ruin your macarons (you get fragile, splotchy shells). Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together icing sugar and cornflour for the meringue
4. In a clean metal (or glass) mixing bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Add about a third of icing sugar/cornflour mix and whisk until sugar is absorbed then beat for a few seconds using elecreic mixer. Add another third of the sugar and repeat whisking and beating. Add the rest of the sugar and whisk until it is absorbed into the egg whites. Turn up mixer speed to medium high and beat until meringue reaches stiff peaks. Scrape down sides of the bowl with clean spatula. Beat the meringue again for about half a minute. Scrape down the sides and test if the meringue is ready. If the meringue balls up inside the whisk, it is stiff enough. But some whisks of mixers are unable to do this so another test I use is to create little peaks all over the meringue in the bowl. If all the peaks stand up straight without curling over, meringue is ready.
5. Scatter half of the dry ingredients over the meringue. Gently fold in using a spatula until no trace of dry ingredients is seen. Scatter the other half of dry ingredients and gently fold until just incorporated. The batter is underfolded at this point. Press the batter against the side of the mixing bowl to deflate some air from the batter. Test consistency again. Repeat this until batter is smooth, shiny and able to fall of spatula in an almost continuous manner. Alternatively, you can test consistency by creating little peaks of batter in your bowl and tap the bottom of the bowl. If the peaks sink back in, your batter is ready. You may find it helpful to watch this video tutorial I did for the basic french method to have a better idea of batter consistency and folding technique.
6. Transfer batter into piping bag fitted with a wilton #8 tip for small hearts and #10 for regular hearts. Pipe the hearts on the tray like this:
I made this video 3 years ago and didn't bother making another one because I think it is clear enough 🤣
You may use a toothpick to nudge the batter into place as necessary, or to pop air bubbles. Bang the tray a few times to pop trapped air bubbles.
Piped batter
7. Place tray into oven for 10 min. Let it rest at room temperature free from draft while you preheat the oven to 170°C for 10 min. If you happen to have access to two ovens, you may preheat one to 65°C and the other to 170°C right from the start and just pop the tray of piped batter from the low temperature oven to the high temperature oven straight away after 15 min in low temperature oven. The purpose of oven drying is to speed up the process of forming a sturdy membrane on the surface of the shell before baking.
Once the tray is in the oven at 170 °C, reduce the temperature to 140°C. Bake for 18-20min for small hearts and 22-25min for regular hearts. Please note that the suggested temperature and time is a reference only as each oven works differently. Adjust your baking temperature and time accordingly, including the initial oven drying temperature and time.
Let the shells cool completely on baking tray before carefully removing the parchment away from the shells (not the other way round).
Freshly baked hearts!
Another view! I love this view!
Raspberry dark chocolate ganache
Ingredients:
65g dark chocolate couverture
6g unsalted butter
18g heavy cream
1/8tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp coffee liqueur
8g freeze-dried raspberry powder
Steps :
1. Place all ingredients except raspberry powder in microwave-safe bowl. Heat on medium power for 20 sec and mix well. Repeat heating and mixing as necessary until smooth and melted.
2. Add freeze-dried raspberry powder and mix well.
3. Let the ganache firm up until toothpaste consistency before transferring into piping bag. You may choose to whip the ganache for a lighter texture if you wish.
You may fill the macarons with any filling of your choice but I love the raspberry dark chocolate combo as it compliments the sweetness of the macarons well so overall the confectionery is an explosion of flavours without being too sweet. Remember to be patient and only consume the macarons after a few days of maturing! Let the macarons sit at room temperature for 15 min before eating or the ganache might be too firm. The ganache recipe I share is suitable for hot climates like Singapore so feel free to increase the amount of cream if you want a softer ganache.
With the cancellation of the church event, I rushed out some hearts to give away instead! We need to spread more love during this trying time and not panic.
Due to an overwhelming response to my teacup macaron class for chinese new year in January, I decided to conduct another macaron teacup class but with a different design!
Bears in teacups!
Unlike the earlier teacup macaron class which focused on a variety of fillings (dark chocolate ganache, mandarin orange yuzu curd and mandarin orange yuzu swiss meringue buttercream), this class covers simple character macarons as well but only one type of filling is taught (Earl Grey lavender ganache).
Just to share another photo of this creation without the filling...
Looking sweet!
This design is suitable for various occasions such as the upcoming Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, or any other day that you want to show appreciation for your loved ones!
Please click on this link to register for the class in June and for more details. There is an earlier class for this in April but it filled up fast too with only one seat left before I was able to advertise for it!
Update 29/01/20: Class on 6th June is full too! Please whatsapp Sharon Chew for a subsequent class.
Mickey Mouse cake to usher in the Year of the Rat! Can you guess what cake this is?
And more slices! My family said it was really sad to cut up the cute Mickey =p
Yes it is kueh lapis! Great when we have extra egg yolks! =)
The character kueh lapis was rather experimental, and I didn't think it would work. I actually made a few more other kueh lapis with the kids! Everyone loves it (it's a lot sweeter and richer than the usual chiffon cake haha).
Here's the recipe of the kueh lapis experiment for those who are interested.
Butter Batter
250g butter, at room temperature, cut into small cubes
100 g condensed milk
1 tbsp rum (or 1/2 tbsp vanilla if you prefer non-alcoholic version)
17g corn flour
58g all-purpose flour
½ tsp mixed spice (I used ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and cardamon)
1/8 tsp salt (a pinch)
Charcoal powder
Beetroot powder
Egg Whites
5 egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar
40g castor sugar
For greasing: 1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, using only top heat. Place your cake mold into the oven to warm up while you prepare the batter.
2. Egg Yolks: Beat egg yolks with castor sugar (for egg yolks) using an electric mixer on high speed until the egg yolks are pale and thick (ribbon stage). Set aside.
3. Butter Batter: Place the butter, condensed milk and rum (or vanilla extract) in another bowl and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add in corn flour, plain flour, spice and salt, reduce the speed to low and mix till well incorporated. Lastly, add in your whisked egg yolks and mix and low speed till well incorporated.
4. Divide the batter 2/3 and 1/3. To 1/3 of the batter, add in 1 tsp charcoal powder, and then bit by bit more and mix well till desired shade of black. From the 2/3 plain batter, spoon out 1 tsp and add ¼ tsp beetroot powder and mix well for the pink batter.
5. Egg Whites: Place the egg whites in a new clean, dry and oil-free bowl. Beat on low speed with cream of tartar until soft peaks formed. Add in castor sugar (for egg whites) gradually and are glossy and stiff peaks formed.
6. Fold ⅓ of the egg whites into the butter batter to lighten the mixture. Fold in the rest of the egg whites gently until fully incorporated.
7. Remove cake pan from oven, and brush the base with melted butter to grease the part you are adding batter. Start with the nose (charcoal batter), and bake for 5 mins, or until the top is golden brown in colour. For the next layer, grease the face, spoon plain batter into a thin layer around the nose and bake another 5 min, or until the top is golden brown in colour. Gradually build up layer by layer, spooning or piping charcoal batter onto the black parts, and likewise plain batter for the face. Repeat this until you have reached the top of the cake mold.
8. For the pink batter, you can either pipe it onto the cake mold at the tongue area, or bake it separately in a cupcake liner,as what I have done and stick it onto the cake later.
9. Allow the cake to cool completely before unmoulding the cake by popping it out of the greased mold.
Bushfires are a common thing in Australia during summer. But the one that razed Australia end of last year went on at an unprecedented scale and is still not over to this date. Many homes and lives were lost and countless wildlife affected. I am sure you have seen in the news so I shall spare you the details.
Many years ago, my family visited Australia and I had the chance to carry a koala. I was smitten by how cute they are and was surprised by how solidly heavy they are too. It is really heart wrenching to see them lose their habitat, get injured or even killed, along with other animals. I decided to make a choux pastry creation to reflect the sad state of affairs.
Injured koala in a barren landscape. It looks so sad it makes me want to cry too
I chose black sesame as the filling flavour and worked with what I have at home at the moment. I have some 100% black sesame powder with no sugar added. As I wanted something lighter to compliment the richness of black sesame, I used whipped cream as the base instead of pastry cream.
Choux pastry filled with black sesame whipped cream
You may refer to this post for details on how to create the choux pastry and the craquelin that goes on top of the grey pastry cases. I piped 2.5cm diameter circles for the koala head and body, and used a 3cm diameter craquelin. I used a 1cm diameter open star tip to pipe some slanted éclairs for the tree trunks. As for baking conditions, I preheated the oven to 210°C and reduced the tenperature immediately to 190°C once the tray is in. I baked for 10 min before reducing temperature to 180°C and bake for 10 min. Reduce temperature to 170°C and bake for another 10 min. Reduce temperature to 140°C and bake for 20 min with fan mode on to thoroughly dry the pastry cases.
Piped batter and with craquelin on grey cases
I piped the pastry pieces for the branches and koala ears, limbs and tail. These were baked at 170°C for 10-18min depending on the size of the pieces.
I used royal icing to decorate as well as join the parts together.
Recipe for black sesame whipped cream
Feel free to adjust or substitute the ingredients. You may use all whip topping or all dairy cream. You may scale the recipe up or down too. You may use black sesame paste instead of ground black sesame if that is your preference.
Ingredients:
120g whip topping (non dairy whipping cream)
30g double cream
Pinches of salt
60g black sesame powder (or according to taste)
Steps:
1. Place chilled whip topping and double cream in a mixing bowl and whip until firm peaks with electric mixer.
2. Add pinches of salt and mix well. Add black sesame and mix well.
3. Transfer into piping bag and keep it chilled until ready to eat. Choux pastry tastes best when eaten freshly filled to enjoy the crisp pastry and cold and creamy filling inside.
Do donate to Koalas In Care Inc., which is run by volunteers over here. Praying for restoration to happen soon.
Mother and baby koala, inspired by a real photo of a Mother protecting a baby koala during the bushfire that went viral. 🐨💖 Thank God for the rain falls across parts of Australia! However, the recovery and rescue continues and the road ahead is long. Each life saved is special ❤
If you are interested to help, you can visit the Redcross link here.
Another link you might be interested to find out more is WIRES.
Quite a few people asked about character Deco Choux Pastry classes and this is what I intend to teach as the simplest but cute design for a full body character. Back to bascics - - - Teddy bear choux pastries!
Please don't ask me to teach trademarked characters because there are copyright issues involved 😂. Techniques learned at class can be applied to those characters and you can make them on your own once you know the techniques.
This class is suitable for beginners as there isn't a need to be too concerned about browning in oven and the decoration is as minimalist as it can get. I am also sharing how to make a pastry filling that is refreshing and has no additional white sugar added - - lychee rose pastry cream lightened with whipped cream.
Click on this link for more information and to register. Although the March class is full, there is a repeat class in May so do contact Sharon Chew to book a place!
This is the winning caption from my Instagram post. As you know, I am not so good with words, so my friend suggested why not I get others to name the creation instead! hehe
I have shared the recipe in my previous post 3D Cartoon Rat Chiffon Cakes. Here, I added in some red accents to the creation.
I have more rat creations coming up! Hope you are not bored yet! =p
I love cats and had a pet cat once so of course I have to take the chance to create a choux pastry version of my favourite animal! Besides making rat choux pastries to welcome the new year, I made fortune cats to welcome the new year too!
There are variations to the name of this cat but I have always called them "招福猫"
The typical fortune cat is a calico cat and has an arm that waves to 招 or welcome food fortune. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible so I chose to work with plain uncoloured, non chocolated coated versions of the cat (because it is impossible to get the pastries pure white, at most cream coloured) . I used uncoloured cookie dough (craquelin) to control the shape of the main pastry body
You may refer to this post on how to make and bake the basic craquelin and choux pastry batter but just omit the colouring. Baking temperature can be kept at a higher range as browning is not a concern here. For the smaller parts like ears and arms, preheat to 190°C and bake at 170°C until golden brown. For the main parts for head and body, preheat oven to 210°C, and bake at 180°C for 25-30 min, reduce temperature to 150-160°C and continue baking for another 15-20 min to thoroughly dry out the pastry cases. If the insides are still wet, you may cut a hole about 10 cent coin large at the base of the case, return it into the oven and bake at 130°C for 10-15min. Do note that baking temperature and time suggested here are for reference. You need to adjust according to your oven.
Craquelin on top of piped batter. I love using perforated mats for making larger cases for choux as it helps the pastry to rise more evenly in the oven.
You may refer to this post with a video tutorial of how I assembled the penguin choux pastry to have an idea of how I assembled the cat. I used royal icing instead of melted chocolate as it is easier to work with for more intricate details.
A zester is really helpful for getting the parts of pastry fit together nicely! I used red sour candy for the collar.
What's new that I would like to share here is my lychee rose lightened pastry cream recipe. I have shared it before in this post but I understand that ingredients like freeze-dried lychee powder is not easily available and homebakers prefer to work with ingredients that are easily available and they don't end up with huge amounts of something leftover that they don't use often. So my new version of the recipe omits the use of freeze-dried lychee powder while maintaining that strong lychee flavour out of a single can of lychees! You may be pleased to know that I also omit the use of castor sugar in the pastry cream because there are elements there that already contribute to the sweetness.
So here are the main flavouring ingredients I use commonly found in supermarkets
Canned lychee and rose syrup for making bandung (a milky rose syrup drink commonly served at coffeeshops in Singapore)
I don't add a lot of rose syrup in there so not to worry that the pastry cream will be overpowered by floral notes and end up too sweet as well. You may omit the rose syrup and substitute with sugar, or add a bit more if that is your preference. I add only a bit to compliment the lychee flavour and provide a hint of floral note because lychee is the star here.
Lychee rose pastry cream recipe
Ingredients:
450-500g canned lychees of your preferred brand
6g rose syrup
50g milk
2 egg yolks
20g cornflour
Pinches of salt
15g unsalted butter
80g whip topping (or double cream or whipping cream)
Steps:
1. Divide the batch of whole lychees into two. Set aside one batch to puree with some syrup from the can and strain it. Weigh out 150g of the puree with syrup. If there is not enough, add more syrup from the can to make 150g in total. Cut the other batch of lychees into 5mm bits but remove the woody parts first. Store the chopped bits in refrigerator.
2. Sift cornflour into a heavy mixing bowl. Add egg yolks and whisk until a paste forms. Set aside.
3. Place lychee puree, milk, rose syrup and pinches of salt into a small saucepan and heat until steaming.
4. Pour hot liquid in a thin stream into egg yolk mixture while whisking continuously. Pour the mixture back into saucepan. Cook over medium low heat while whisking continuously. Once the mixture thickens, remove from heat and continue whisking until smooth. Return back to heat and continue whisking until custard thickens to your preferred consistency.
5. Remove from heat and whisk in the butter. Pour into a bowl and press cling wrap on the surface of the custard. Refrigerate until cool. At least an hour or overnight if you wish.
6. Fold in the chopped lychees.
7. Whip the whip topping until firm peaks form. Fold into the pastry cream.
Top is plain lychee rose pastry cream. Bottom left is chopped lychee and bottom right is whipped whip topping.
This is how it looks like combining all three!
Remember to fill the pastry cases jist before consuming if you want to enjoy the pastry crisp!
Continuing on from my previous blog post, I decided to have a creation that showcases three of the genres that I work with the most. Rat choux in macaron teacups with some mandarin orange chiffon "oranges" on the side!
The Chinese characters 鼠年大吉 means great fortune in the year of the rat
The choux pastry rats have little feet here (also made out of choux pastry) that aren't present in my previous post.
You may refer to my previous post for details on how to make this simple deco choux design to welcome the year of the rat. The mandarin orange pastry cream I shared is also refreshing and not too sweet. I filled the macaron teacups with earl grey ganache. You may refer to this post on how to create the teacup, including how to pipe hemispherical macaron shells. Details for recipe and how to shape the oranges can be found in this post.
I am still in the midst of adjusting to changes in the new year with the kids starting school again. But do stay tuned for some exciting macaron structure projects in the next month or two! Can't wait to challenge myself with those but also pacing myself so that I don't burnout with many things to juggle.
