With love,
Susanne
How time flies! When I first started on my baking journey, my kids were both preschoolers. They are now in their tweens/teens! Over the years, what they request for birthday bake evolves as they grow. My younger kid is turning 11 soon and for his birthday bake, Among Us macarons was requested. This game is the latest craze among teens today. He loves salted caramel anything so I filled the macarons with salted caramel swiss meringue buttercream and a dollop of salted caramel in the middle....
.... Well... Not all of them are filled with yummy salted caramel. Of course I had to include an imposter, or two ๐. You can't tell which one is the imposter just by looking at them.
Store filled macarons in the fridge in airtight container. Best to wait for a couple of days for the filling to mature the macaron shells before eating. Remember to let the container rest at room temperature for 15 min before opening to avoid condensation from forming on the shells. This is ideal but the way I presented for my kid to "play" meant that the same container had to be taken in and out of the fridge several times (he is only allowed one macaron to eat each time). To avoid the condensation from turning the remaining macarons soggy, I placed a paper towel in the container to absorb moisture, and open and closed the container as quickly as I can.
I usually bake enough for my younger kid's whole class but due to the Covid situation, he can't do that for his birthday this year. Nonetheless, it is one of the more fun birthday bakes for him ๐.
With lots of love,
Phay Shing
Hubby's book on depression is finally launching! He wrote a book based on his Depressed Dave comics about depression. This is not just another self help book for mental health wellness full of platitudes or toxic positivity. It is written by a depression sufferer and rooted in real life. Despite its seemingly heavy content, there is humour in there. It covers what a person with depression feels like, treatment options, how friends and family can help to support the sufferer, as well as what are some of the unhelpful things that people do to mental health sufferers. Hubby wrote the book in the hope that it will help those who are suffering to understand their condition better, to seek help and get the support they need, as well as for people in general to have a better understanding of depression. Here is my macaron version of the book cover but done in reversed colours!
A closer look at the macaron version!
You may refer to this blog post about the book and the related events which are happening via zoom. Registration is free! I will be involved in one of the sessions as part of the panel which includes the caregiver (me), a psychologist (his ex-therapist) and a friend who has been supporting him in his journey.
With lots of love,
Phay Shing
Hope you liked this labour of love!
With lots of love,
Susanne
This is one class that was full before I even had a chance to advertise for it!
It looks almost like a storyboard of sorts!
Do contact Sharon from ArtZ Baking and Culinary if you are interested to join the class in April 2021.
With love,
Phay Shing
I found out by accident some time back that the frozen diplomat cream I make for choux pastry fillings make excellent ice-creams when frozen. I did some research recently and found that one of the versions of no-churn old fashioned ice-cream is precisely frozen diplomat cream!
Why use egg yolks in ice-cream making? Because egg yolks are natural emulsifiers! Many cheap commercial ice-creams sold in tubs contain artificial emulsifiers to keep the ice-cream creamy and scoopable. Many no-churn ice-cream recipes are condensed milk based. While the condensed milk version is simple as it contains few ingredients, you can't control the amount of sugar in your ice-cream and it does tend to be rather sweet. You can have total control over how much sugar goes into cooked custard based ice-creams, like this one that I am sharing.
I make my own salted caramel and usually keep some in the freezer, so making this ice-cream wasn't too troublesome. If you don't have salted caramel on hand, you may refer to this recipe to make some before you make the ice-cream. I make and store my salted caramel in quite a firm state. For incorporating it into ice-cream, you have to thin it a little with milk or the salted caramel bits will be really hard when frozen. Prepare some salted caramel with consistency thin enough to flow off a spoon easily. You may choose to fold the caramel into the ice-cream or drizzle over each scoop. The great thing about homemade ice-cream is there's so many things you can adjust according to taste ๐ so feel free to adjust the ingredient quantity based on your preference.
Salted caramel that is thinned with milk and some biscoff biscuits in the process of being crushed. I do the old fashioned way of using a pestle to grind the biscuits.
Ingredients :
Steps:
1. Heat heavy cream in saucepan until steaming (not boiling or bubbling), about 70°C. Remove from heat. Combine bloomed gelatin sheets (squeeze out excess water) and hot cream in a bowl. Whisk until gelatin is melted. Press a cling wrap on the surface and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.
2. Heat milk and vanilla in saucepan until steaming (not boiling). In the meantime, whisk egg yolks, brown sugar, cornflour and salt together in a glass measuring jug or heavy mixing bowl.
3. When milk is hot enough, remove from heat and pour in a thin stream into the egg yolk mixture, whisking the egg yolk mixture continuously. Pour everything back into saucepan.
4. Cook the custard over medium low heat while whisking continuously. Once the mixture starts to thicken, remove from heat and continue to whisk until mixture is smooth again. Return the saucepan back to heat and keep whisking and cooking until thickened, about 2 minutes more. Be careful not to use too high heat or you get scrambled eggs.
5. Sieve custard into a bowl and press cling wrap on the surface. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1h or overnight.
6. Take out set heavy cream from fridge. Consistency is like panna cotta.
Use an electric mixer to beat until stiff peaks.
7. Take out set custard/pastry cream from fridge and whip briefly with a spatula to loosen it up
8. Fold whipped cream into custard in a few additions.
9. Fold in crushed biscoff biscuits.
10. Fold in salted caramel (optional if you are serving ice-cream with salted caramel drizzled over) .
You may serve the ice-cream with more crushed biscoff biscuits and/or salted caramel!
Enjoy!
With love,
Phay Shing
I have made a savoury chiffon years ago in the form of tomato chiffon cake "tomatoes". You can read about it in this blog post. I decided to revisit it again but adding another savoury element between layers of the savoury chiffon sponge this time round in the form of tomato aspic (tomato gelatin)!
With love,
Phay Shing
