"Corgi in Candyland" Strawberry and Vanilla Macarons

Something that is cuteness and sweetness overload... Corgi in Candyland macaron creation! 

This piece showcases various macaron techniques such as giant macarons, 3D macarons (cupcake cases), swirl macarons and character macarons! 

I used the Swiss meringue method and broke up the baking of macaron shells over 2 days due to the sheer number of colours involved. Just to share some pictures of the process... 

Piping cupcake cases on silicone cupcake cases. I ended up not using the purple one as it blends in with the pink base. 

I won't be sharing pictures of piped batter for the corgis, swirl macarons and giant macaron because I am sharing these! 

As-baked macaron shells from top view! 

The giant macaron is actually about 15cm im diameter. You may refer to my youtube video on how to pipe and bake such macarons well. 

Another view of the baked shells! 

The macarons are filled with 3 types of fillings: strawberry ganache (do note I named it strawberry white chocolate buttercream in the referenced blog post because although the ingredients are like ganache, the method of preparation is like a buttercream of sorts. I only decided to settle for categorising it as a ganache later on) , strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream and vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. 

The strawberry swiss meringue buttercream is made by adding a little strawberry emulco, some strawberry compote and freeze-dried strawberry powder to vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. 

I love how the giant macaron looks😍

Filling the cupcake cases with vanilla and swiss meringue buttercreams. I use wooden skewers as stabilisers for the lollipops as the lollipop sticks are long and it makes the lollipops top heavy. The skewers, combined with royal icing, makes the lollipops stable and not collapse or tip over when assembled. 

Filling lollipops with strawberry ganache and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream

Filling the corgis with strawberry ganache and swiss meringue buttercream 

And of course I finish off with a personal touch by adidng in the name, which is made of macaron too! 

With love, 

Phay Shing 

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Squid Game Chiffon Cake (with Hidden surprise)

Who has watched Netflix's Squid Game? 

Here's my cake with a hidden surprise!  You will appreciate this if you watched the show. 

Here's the slicing video!

It's not the usual type of show I watch and I watched it out of curiosity from the hype. The show is really intense and very artistic with interesting themes. I liked it very much for its artistic direction and sets, and was kind of hooked, though I wouldn't encourage my kids to watch it as it is pretty graphic. I really liked the pretty pink BTS-coloured maze of stairs.

Hope you liked my cake!

I always have difficulty making things scary, so I had friends commenting this is the cute kids version lol. Hope you liked this creation too!

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Knight and Graduating Dragon Macaron Carousel

I have made many designs and themes of character macarons since 2015 but I have never made knight, dragon and castle themed ones before. So I was really excited to make one, in carousel form too! 

This is graduation themed as well so someone has to wear the mortarboard. Of course it has to be the dragon! 

The castle macarons were made as a backdrop so they are not part of the carousel so I took photos of them as loose pieces. 

I used the Swiss meringue method for making the macarons. The bake was split into 2 separate days due to the many colours and rounds of baking involved. 

Just to share some photos of the process... 

Dragon piped macaron batter. I piped some plain rounds to bake for testing of colours for icing, edible marker and paint post-baking. 

Castle piped batter. Everyone says this looks like a dress if you turn it upside down😂. 

Knight piped batter. 

Piped batter for mortarboard pieces. I put my thumb there to show how tiny they are! 

Assembled mortarboard with royal icing and sour candy strip for the tassle. The regular sized version of this can be found in my Macaron Basics book. 

Some of the freshly baked pieces of the carousel frame. This is the first time I made a yellow frame! 

Undecorated as-baked macaron shells for the dragon, knight and castle. 

Decorated version of the dragon (minus the mortarboard), knight and castle. See what a big difference adding the details make! 

The macarons are filled with mango white chocolate buttercream and dark chocolate ganache. Crunchy chocolate balls are added for the large macaron base. 

I usually make my mango ganache with a combination of homemade mango compote and freeze-dried mango powder for a strong mango flavour. But as a carousel filling, I needed something really firm so no compote was used. My mango white chocolate buttercream is an adaptation from my usual mango ganache. 

Mango white chocolate buttercream (firm and tart filling!) 

Ingredients :

140g White chocolate (finely chopped or use chips) 

42g Unsalted butter 

A pinch of salt

28g Freeze-dried mango powder

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

Note: feel free to adjust the amount of mango powder and white chocolate according to taste and climate. 

Steps:

1. Place everything in a microwave-safe bowl. Melt the butter and chocolate in bursts of 10 seconds on medium-low power. Mix well between heating cycles. 

2. Set aside to let it firm up in aircon room for half an hour or in the fridge for a few minutes until toothpaste consistemcy. Whip it up to lighten the texture. Transfer into piping bag for use. 

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the base as I think it is beautiful too! 

The filling was rather soft when I was assembling so I decided to share my method of assembling such that there is less risk of a carousel collapse. It's Lego to the rescue! You may use other things like retort stand or anything with adjustable height too but Lego is just so handy for me. I shared this little tutorial on how to use Lego as temporary supports during carousel assembly on Instagram. 

The wooden skewers help to take some of the weight of the heavy roof. 

To remove the skewers and Lego supports, carefully slide the paper towels under the supports away first. This will create some give between the roof and skewers so that it is easier to remove the skewers. 

You may wish to assemble 3 (instead of 2 as shown here) of the 5 poles while the supports are still there if you want to be really sure there is no chance for collapse. Once the royal icing on the poles are set firm, the structure is very stable. 

Assembling this was a breeze with the temporary supports! 

With love, 

Phay Shing 

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Noah's Ark Choux Pastry-Cookie Construction Masterclass

Noah's Ark themed birthday bakes are a popular and evergreen theme worldwide. Instead of creating the ark and animal details in fondant, why not learn to make them in yummier mediums like choux pastry and cookies! 

The ark is made of brown sugar cookie that is not too sweet, and filled with dark chocolate ganache between layers. 

The animals are made of choux au craquelin and filled with mixed berry diplomat cream. Yes, even the tiny birds are made of choux! 

This class is open for registration and you may click on this link for more details on what is covered over the 2-day masterclass in early December. You may opt for either hands-on or online version of the class. Hands-on participants have the added perk of having unlimited access to the online class videos at no extra cost. I cover in detail the basic techniques as well as the decorative techniques. You don't need to have experience in making either cookie construction projects or choux pastry, but some baking experience is helpful as much content will be covered over the 2 days. Do note that the online class is half the price of the hands-on class. 

I can assure you it will be fun! 

With love, 

Phay Shing

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Cheese Pizza Chiffon Cake

 

Cute, Cheese “pizza” with Surprise cheesy filling anyone?🍕😛

Everything is naturally colored with @suncorefoods supercolor powders!

Sending lots of love and cheerful vibes with my happy pizza cake!❤🥰

Cheese chiffon cake
2 egg yolks
10g superfine sugar
30g vegetable oil
30g milk
40g cake flour, sifted
30g parmesan cheese powder
Pinch of baking powder
Pinch of salt

2 egg whites
36g superfine sugar

Pizza base:
Suncore yellow safflower, vermillion annatto for the color

Whisk egg yolks with sugar, followed by oil and milk. Add in dry ingredients and whisk till well combined. Divide the batter 2 (yellow): 1 (dark orange): 1 (light orange). Add in supercolor powders and mix till desired colors.

In another bowl, whisk egg whites with sugar till firm peaks. Divide the meringue 2: 1: 1. Fold in the meringue to the above batter till well incorporated. Bake the yellow batter in a 6-inch cake pan at 140C for 25 mins, and the orange batters as sheet cakes for 18 mins.

Pizza “fillings”
Suncore red radish powder, yellow safflower and blue spirulina for the color

Same as above, except divide the batter 2 (red): 1 (green): 1 (plain). Bake as sheet cakes for 18 mins. *I used 1 tsp yellow safflower and 1/8 tsp blue spirulina for the green color.

Assembly

Slice the yellow cake into 2 slices and add shredded pizza cheese in the middle.
Cut out orange cake strips and wrap around the yellow cake for the border.

Cut out various shapes for fillings. Assembly video above or here💕:

Add on the toppings and decorate with melted chocolate.
Microwave before serving for extra ooze effect! 😋

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Jinbesan Yuzu and Dark Chocolate Macarons

My friend requested for some Jinbesan macarons. I couldn't resist making a couple of them listen to the sound of the sea during phototaking! 

I used the Swiss meringue method to make the macaron shells. Here are a couple of pictures of the piped batter. 

I used edible black marker and royal icing to include the details. 

The water spout is made from royal icing transfers. 

Here's a peek at the feet on the macaron shells! 

I filled the macarons with a combination of yuzu ganache and dark chocolate ganache. 

I hope these smiley whales put a smile on your face like theirs! 

With love, 

Phay Shing

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Hello Kitty x Pusheen Chiffon Cake

 

Have you heard of the cutest collab EVER between Hello Kitty and Pusheen #HelloKittyxPusheen ?😍

Love this sooo much and thank you @Pusheen and @Hellokitty for sharing this creation too!! 💖💖

My chiffon cake creation inspired this dream with double dose of cuteness! ❤❤🥰

With lots of love,

Susanne

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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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All You Need To Know About Making Anime Character Macarons

After making Nezuko and Levi macarons, I had requests for video tutorial on how to make anime type of character macarons. Although people would like to see how to make specific characters, I am not comfortable with using trademarked characters as subjects for the tutorial so I am using a caricature of myself drawn by very talented artists Duvoir and Artysaur (from Twitch). Hubby commissioned them to draw caricatures of our whole family some time back so we have the drawings for our own use. Presenting myself as a macaron, lol! 

Cat ears are included because I love cats. 

I put up two Youtube videos for this. The first video focuses on piping the macaron batter and some tips for the dos and don'ts. The second video focuses on using edible marker and vodka wash technique to include the details. Tips such as how to "erase" edible marker marks are included. A bonus portion is also included at the end of the second video showing how I fill the macarons and how to cut it such that you get a nice cross-section for photography. 

I hope you find the tutorials helpful! 

With love, 

Phay Shing 

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