Peanut Salted Caramel Sunflower Macarons

My friend who is a fan of my macarons wanted something savoury and floral themed. She suggested peanut salted caramel as the flavour and I went with it :). Presenting my version of sunflower macarons!

I replaced some almond with peanut to make the macaron shells. The result is something that's really fragrant. I used cocoa powder for the middle part of the flower and a little more salt than usual. The resulting shells were yummy on their own!  I used a modified reduced sugar recipe.

Recipe for peanut macaron shells
Ingredients (makes about 28 sunflowers):
Mass
40g roasted ground peanut
120g superfine almond meal
145g icing sugar
13g rice flour
2g cornflour
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
64g egg whites
4g cocoa powder
A pinch of charcoal powder (optional)
Yellow and green gel food colouring

Italian meringue
160g caster sugar
64g egg whites
60g water
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Steps:
1. Prepare baking tray with flower template underneath. Set oven rack to lowest position.

2. Prepare the mass. Sift together almond, peanut, icing sugar, rice flour, cornflour and salt. Add egg whites and mix until well combined.

3. Portion out 245g of the mass for yellow, 96g for brown and 38g for green. Add sifted cocoa powder and charcoal to the brown portion and mix well. Add gel food colouring for the respective colours and mix well.

4. Prepare the meringue. Put sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to boil without stirring until 115-118℃. Monitor the temperature with candy thermometer. In the meantime, beat the egg whites with cream of tartar with an electric mixer at medium low speed until soft peaks form. Reduce mixer speed if necessary if syrup temperature is not reached yet. Once syrup is ready, increase mixer speed to medium high. Carefully pour the syrup into the egg whites in a steady stream, avoiding the beaters. Continue beating for another 10 min or until meringue is cooled to body temperature or room tempwrature.

5. Portion out the meringue for various colours. I used a lower ratio of meringue : mass for this design to make the batter thicker. I calculated the weight of meringue as weight of mass x 0.45. If you are making plain round shaped macarons, just use up all the meringue that you prepared. Fold the meringue into the mass in two additions until consistency is like slow-moving lava. You may refer to this post for video tutorial of the basics.

6. Transfer batter into piping bag fitted with appropriate sized piping tips. Pipe away! You may refer to this post for tips on how to pipe complexed shapes. You may also refer to my Creative Baking: Macarons book for a more systematic presentation of the basics.

Piped sunflowers

7. Dry the shells until dry to touch in air-con room or under a fan. Bake in preheated oven at 140℃ for 10-12min. Reduce temperature to 120℃ and bake for another 10-12 min or until the feet do not appear wet.

Freshly baked shells! I included a few ladybugs too.

I painted on some orange highlights in the petals but that's optional.

Recipe for peanut caramel ganache
Ingredients:
80g peanut butter chips
25g salted caramel chips
40g whipping cream
1/2 tsp freshly ground sea salt

Note can replace with peanut butter in the place of chips. Use 30g cream instead. Here's a picture of the chips I bought from a supermarket.

Steps:
1. Place all ingredients in small saucepan and melt over low heat while stirring constantly with spatula.

2. Transfer into a bowl and chill in freezer for a couple of minutes. Whip the mixture with spatula until it becomes creamy. Repeat freezing and beating as necessary.

You may refer to this post for the recipe for salted caramel.

Transfer both fillings into piping bags. Pipe onto the shells.

Refrigerate for at least 24h before serving. Let the macarons sit at room temperature for 10 min before eating.

With love,
Phay Shing

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Pegasus Pusheen Chiffon Cake Pop (Video tutorial)

Finally ready to unveil the video tutorial for Pegasus Pusheen Chiffon Cake Pop made in collaboration with @Pusheen! We had to cut it short to 1 min for Instagram. Hope you like it!

*Updated: Youtube version up!

Recipe:
Pegasus Pusheen Chiffon cake pops
(Makes 4 egg pops)

Egg yolk batter
1 egg yolk
5g castor sugar
10g vegetable/corn oil
11g water
1g vanilla extract
15g cake flour (Prima)

1 egg white
11g castor sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar


1. Prepare egg shells by washing and peeling off the internal membrane. Allow to dry and place them in mini cupcake liners. (see video)

2. Preheat oven to 140°.

3. Prepare egg yolk batter:

a. Whisk egg yolk with sugar using hand whisk.

b. Add in oil, water, vanilla extract and mix well.

c. Whisk in sifted cake flour till no lumps are found.

4. Divide out ¼ of egg yolk batter and add pink coloring.

5. Prepare meringue:

a. In a grease-free, dry metal bowl, using electric mixer, whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy.

b. Add in castor sugar for meringue gradually and whisk at high speed till firm peaks form.

6. Portion out ¼ of meringue for pink batter. Gently fold in meringue into respective egg yolk batter 1/3 at a time.

7. Fill the egg shells till 2/3 full.

8. Bake at 140°C for 30-35 min, or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean (or you can also use 160°C for 10 min then 140°C for 10-15 min).

9. Pour remaining plain and pink batter into a small pan lined with baking paper (I used 6” x 4” pan). Bake at 140°C for 20 min, or until skewer inserted comes out clean.

10. Allow cakes to cool completely on wire rack.

11. Unmould the egg cake pops by cracking the egg shell into small pieces using the back of a teaspoon.

Assembly

12. Flip sheet cake onto cutting mat.

13. Cut out the various shapes (wings, mane, tail) from the plain and pink sheet cakes.

14. Make the facial features using black chiffon sheet cake or melted chocolate.

15. Assemble the parts onto the egg cake pops using melted marshmallows (pop a few marshmallows in the oven with a sprinkle of water for 30 secs).


Hope you enjoy this!

With lots of love,
Susanne

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Adorable Hedgehog Cream Puffs Class

This is my first Creative Choux pastry class at ToTT. If this looks familiar, that's because I reused the picture from the blog :p.

Hedgehog cream puffs!

If you aren't a fan of sweet bakes, cakes or macarons, choux pastry may be something you enjoy as it can be made with very little sugar, yet tasty and very enjoyable to the senses. The best part about making Choux pastry is you don't have to mess around with meringues and you don't need special equipment like electric mixers or candy thermometers.

Come and join me for a class to make these cute chocolate based choux pastry cases filled with Chantilly cream (lightly sweetened dairy cream). Registration link can be found here.

With love,
Phay Shing

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'Dim Sum' Chiffon Cake

Which Dim sum is your favorite? ;)

This is a cake I made for a Dim sum-lover! And a work I really really enjoyed making! It’s my first attempt at chiffon cake Dim sum, after Sushi and Nyonya kueh!

I have made a few Wood-style chiffon cakes earlier and have shared the recipe. You can check out my previous posts. This bamboo steamer is similar to my previous wood-pattern chiffon cakes.

The dim sum are carved and cut from various chiffon cake pops, briefly:

Siew mai: made from cutting out chocolate chiffon using a round cutter and wrapping it with yellow chiffon sheet cake like a real siew mai :p

Popiah: swissroll

Hargou, Jade Xiaolongbao, and Fried Wanton: carved/cut from round cake pops

Bao: carved/cut from round bowl cake


Making this cake just made me crave for dim sum! =p

And my favorite is hargou and siew mai! =)

With lots of love,
Susanne

More Creative Chiffon Cake ideas here!

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Peppa Pig and Family Strawberry Macarons (updated filling recipe that is bursting with flavour!)

This is another Peppa Pig themed bake that I made for my friend's daughter. I made Peppa Pig lychee custard cream puffs too. I happen to know the little girl from Creche where I serve in church so it's nice to make something for a sweetie whom I know personally :). Presenting the whole Peppa Pig family!

Daddy Pig, Mummy Pig, Peppa and George

I used the reduced sugar recipe for the macaron shells here. Both regular and reduced sugar recipes can be found here. You may refer to my Creative Baking: Macarons book for a systematic presentation of the basics and complex shaped macarons. You may refer to my video tutorials for macaron basics and piping of complex shapes on the blog too.

Just to share some pictures of the process...

Piping the shells

Freshly baked shells

I decorated the shells using royal icing and edible marker.

I filled the shells with strawberry white chocolate buttercream. Although I used the recipe here, I used homemade strawberry jam instead of strawberry puree as I find that the natural strawberry flavour is more intense this way. I don't measure the ingredients in a precise manner when making fruit jams for macaron filling as it's really simple to make and depends on your taste. I usually weigh out about double the weight of fresh fruit. E.g. I use 60g of fresh fruit when I need about 30g of jam. Simply finely chop or puree the fruit, add a little sugar, a pinch of salt and half to one tsp of lemon juice. Put everything in a small saucepan pan and cook over low heat until the liquid is reduced and jam-like in consistency. Be careful not to burn the jam.

Homemade strawberry jam

Since some of you are lazy to click on the blog link, I shall copy and paste the recipe here :p

Recipe for strawberry white chocolate buttercream
Ingredients (fills about 16-20 macarons):
55g white chocolate, chopped*
10g vegetable shortening
10g unsalted butter
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
26g strawberry puree (or preferably homemade strawberry jam)
1/2 tsp strawberry emulco/ paste

* you may replace up to half of the white chocolate with cocoa butter for an even less sweet filling.

Steps:
1. Place white chocolate, vegetable shortening and butter in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat at medium power for 20 seconds. Mix well with a spatula. Repeat until mixture is smooth. Add salt and mix well.

2. Freeze the bowl for 2 minutes and mix well with spatula. Repeat freezing and mixing. As the mixture thickens, start to beat it with the spatula. You will notice that the texture will lighten up and become creamy.

3. Add a teaspoon of puree and whip the mixture with the spatula until well combined. Repeat until all the puree has been added. Add strawberry paste and mix well. The texture should be like buttercream.

4. Transfer whipped strawberry buttercream into piping bag and pipe onto the shells. Store assembled macarons in the fridge in an airtight container for at least 24h before serving.

Filling the shells with strawberry buttercream that is bursting with flavour!

I made some extra plain round macarons because I had extra batter and filling, and shared this with helpers at the Creche. Feedback was it's really yummy! Do give this recipe a try!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Peppa Pig Lychee Rose Custard Cream Puff

My friend requested for Peppa Pig themed bakes for her daughter's birthday. Incidentally, I know the little girl from Creche where I serve in church so it's a nice thing to be able to bake for a sweetie that I know personally. Another friend of mine wanted me to make lychee flavoured pastry cream for her choux pastry birthday bake next year (booking me super early!) So I thought why not try out this flavour. Presenting my version of Peppa Pig Lychee Rose cream puffs!

Here's a closer look at the cross-section. You can't see the lychee bits very clearly although there are chunks of it in the cream.

I used canned lychee in syrup for the chopped lychees, and freeze dried lychee powder to enhance the lychee flavour.

One small can of lychee (234g net weight, 95g drained weight) yielded about 61g chopped lychee with the woody part removed.

Recipe for lychee rose pastry cream
Ingredients:
200ml milk
30g sugar
20g cornflour
2 egg yolks
10g unsalted butter
1/4 tsp rose water (omit if you prefer no rose flavour)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp freeze-dried lychee powder (optional, omit if unavailable. Use more canned chopped lychee instead)
Chopped lychee, woody part removed (add as much or little as you prefer)

Smooth lychee rose custard

Fold in 60g of chopped lychee into 120-140g of rose pastry cream. Use less pastry cream of you are not using freeze-dried lychee powder.

Recipe for Choux pastry case can be found here. Just to share some pictures of the process...

Piping peppa pig choux pastry

Bake at 180℃ for 20min, 160℃ for 20 min and cool in the oven with the oven switched off for another 10min.

I mentioned in my previous choux pastry post that I will show you how I fill the cases now. I cut a hole at the base and put the cut piece back. The requester can fill the pastry cream anytime she likes and enjoy the pastry shell while it's still crisp but the cream while it is still cold.

Nice hollow interior! I still find the walls a little thick for mg liking although I love the texture. I may tweak the recipe again for my next Choux pastry bake.

I used royal icing for Peppa Pig's eyes and cheek. Let the royal icing dry completely before carefully removing them from the parchment paper

Piped eyes and cheeks

Premaking these parts makes decorating the pastry much easier as you may just stick it on after coating the surface with chocolate.

Strawberry white chocolate coating
Ingredients:
60g white chocolate, chopped (or compound white chocolate chop)
6g vegetable shortening
1-2 drops of strawberry emulco
Pinches of salt

Steps:
1. Place white chocolate and shortening in a microwave safe bowl. Heat at medium power for 10-20 sec and mix well. Repeat until completely melted.

2. Add salt and mix well. Add strawberry emulco one drop at a time and mix well after each addition, until desired pink shade is obtained.

3. Transfer to piping bag and pipe onto choux pastry case surface. You may use your clean and dry finger to smooth out the white chocolate while it is not completely set yet, in order to get a smoother looking finish. Stick the eyes and rosy cheek on before the chocolate hardens.

See the difference between freshly piped and smoothed out white chocolate.

Prepare some red coloured white chocolate mixture and pipe or paint on the mouth and nostrils.

You may store decorated choux pastry cases in airtight container.

With love,
Phay Shing

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'Moomin' Reduced Egg Yolk Taiwanese Castella Cake

Posting one of my of super back logs =p. I made this Moomin somewhere near Chinese new year, near the time of my Culinary arts ministry "Doggy Castella cakes" class. I had joked that this was Moomin after eating too much pineapple tarts LOL.

This is optimized based on my previous "Doggy Castella cake" recipe. It is a special reduced egg yolk recipe for white Castella cake as Moomin was requested. The use of egg whites in the egg yolk batter also adds moisture and a slightly "yoga-like" quality to the cake texture.

The Castella batter is more runny than the chiffon batter, so is more suitable for more single tone cakes (or when marbling is needed), than for precisely-controlled patterns. You can read my previous post on more details.

Reduced Egg Yolk Castella Recipe
1.5 whole egg
70g warm oil or melted butter
72g whole milk
108 g Top flour, or Cake flour (Prima)
A pinch of salt
4g vanilla extract

6 egg whites
½ tsp cream of tartar
120g castor sugar

1. Preheat oven to 160°C with a tray of water under the lowest rack (steam baking).

2. Heat the oil or butter in a microwave (40 sec for mine). Add a pinch of salt and milk, then whisk in sifted Top flour or cake flour. *I checked the temperature was less than 60°C as you don't want to end up cooking your egg yolks.

3. Add in 1.5 whole egg (i.e. about 80g) and mix to silky smooth batter (do not overmix). Add in vanilla extract and stir well.

4. In a separate bowl, using an electric mixer, whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till foamy. Add in the sugar gradually and whisk till firm peaks are formed.

5. Fold in the meringue into respective egg yolk batter in 3 additions.

6. Pour into a doll cake pan. Bake at 160°C for 15 min then 150°C for 10 min, 140°C for 40 min, or until skewer inserted into the centre of the cakes come out clean). *Note that individual oven vary, do check for doneness yourself using skewer.
*You also use this recipe for a 7-inch square pan lined with baking paper and cardboard at the side (like normal Taiwanese Castella).

7. Give the cake a knock once out of the oven and unmould by hand when cool (similar to normal tube pans, see video).

This is for the body of the Moomin. The head was also made using the same recipe in 2 glass bowls (1/6 the recipe above), baking time (160°C for 15 min then 140°C for 15 min). The arms and feet were also from the same recipe, from cake pop molds and roll cakes (160°C for 15 min). The Moomin was assembled by carving out the parts from the cake pop molds and assembling with melted marshmallow glue (see my Deco Chiffon Cake Basics).

Have a moo-vellous week ahead!

With lots of love,
Susanne



More Creative Chiffon Cake ideas here!

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Rosette Macarons with Whipped Strawberry Ganache Roses

I don't like to follow trendy bakes but instead prefer to create whimsical bakes that sometimes people don't think of. But this particular trending macaron intrigued me so much that I couldn't get it out of my mind. Not because I wanted to follow the trend, but because it presented a technical challenge that got my hands itchy to try and solve the mystery.

Presenting my humble attempt at rosette macarons with whipped strawberry ganache roses as the filling!

It all began when people started posting images of macarons piped as rosettes on social media, but keeping absolutely tight-lipped about how they made it. For the past week many people in a macaron FB group have been trying to figure out how to make it. So far, some have managed but the results are not easily replicated and somehow while they look pretty, they don't look quite like the original version. The original rosette macaron has feet like macarons, but ridges that are sharp and clear, and surface that is smooth like meringue cookies. If you are familiar with making macarons, you will know that it is quite impossible to get the rosettes with regular macaron batter, regardless of the method you use. Underfolding the batter may result in grainy looking surfaces and potential hollows although it may be possible to get the ridges. Increasing the dry ingredients portion may work too and wonderfully so, but you may not get the smooth, almost shiny surface.

My initial guess is the recipe is probably a cross between meringue cookies and macarons. And so when I saw someone posted macaron shells that look really close to the original, and kindly mentioned that she used Martha Stewart's French macaron recipe, I jumped straight to study the recipe. To my delight, I found that the recipe had much higher icing sugar content and much lower almond flour content than most macaron recipes I have come across, making it closer to a meringue cookie than regular macarons. However, the sugar content in the meringue portion is relatively low. This may be tricky for newbies as a higher sugar content in the meringue component provides more stability. I tweaked the recipe to make something more stable, by moving half of the icing sugar portion to the meringue, adding cornflour (acts to thicken the batter as well) and increasing the dry ingredients portion a little.

If you are super particular about getting perfect macarons with no hollows, this recipe may or may not give you what you want because variable factors like how much you fold and oven temperature also play a part. To err on the side of less chance of hollows due to necessary underfolding of the batter, feel free to increase the icing sugar and almond flour in the dry ingredients portion. But be prepared that the surface may not appear as smooth as what I have achieved here. The smooth look can only be achieved (my guess so I could be wrong) when almond content is not high because almond cannot be dissolved in the egg whites whereas sugar can.

Feel free to upsize the recipe as this is a small batch.

Recipe for macaron shells
Ingredients (makes about 14-16 rosettes, 7-8 macarons):
Meringue
36g egg white ( 1 large egg)
21g caster sugar
29g icing sugar
A pinch of cream of tartar (optional)
Gel food colouring

Dry ingredients
35g almond meal (preferably superfine)
35g icing sugar
1 tsp (2-3g) cornflour (or cornstarch)
A pinch of salt

Steps:
1. Sift together all the dry ingredients. Set aside. Line baking tray with parchment paper. You may place a paper template under the parchment paper with 5-6cm diameter circles to help you with piping the rosettes but this is optional. Set oven rack to lowest position.

2. Mix together icing sugar and caster sugar for the meringue. Beat the egg whites in a clean metal bowl with cream of tartar until foamy. Gradually add mixed sugar and keep beating until stiff peaks form. This may take a few minutes. Make sure that the meringue is really stiff. Add gel food colouring and beat with mixer until colour is even.

Stiff meringue

3. Pour in sifted dry ingredients all at once. Gently fold in the dry ingredients until no trace of flour is seen. Now use the spatula to press the batter to the side of the mixing bowl as you normally would for regular macarons to knock out some air. This is where a little trial and error is required. If you do this too much, the batter will become too runny to hold sharp ridges when piped. But if you don't fold enough, the hollows may be more pronounced. To test, drop a generous dollop of batter from the spatula. If it more or less holds it's peak, the batter is still stiff enough. When it starts to settle a little but not too much when you drop the batter off the spatula, it's time to stop folding.

4. Transfer the batter into piping bag fitted with Wilton 1M piping tip. Pipe the rosettes by starting from the middle, pipe a spiral outwards. Sorry I didn't do a video tutorial on how to pipe this. Perhaps in the future if I have time and I can include it here. Bang the tray once to release any trapped air. I would normally bang a few times for regular macarons but not these babies 😅.

Piped rosettes. You may pipe some five-petaled flowers too!

5. Dry the shells in air-conditioned room or under a fan until dry to touch. Towards end of drying time, preheat oven to 160℃.

6. Bake for 5 min. Turn the temperature down to 130℃ and bake for another 7-8 min. Reduce temperature to 110℃ and bake for another 10 min or until feet no longer appears wet. Please note that this temperature and time is just a gauge. Each oven behaves differently. Cool completely before carefully remove the shells from baking sheet.

Freshly baked shells! I added white pearl sprinkles on one of the flowers after piping the batter so that it sticks to the piped batter 

Checkout the feet!

Nice and fluffy interior! There's a small space of hollow but nothing major :). The texture is so delicate to bite because it resembles a meringue cookie as well.

I made some whipped strawberry ganache as the filling. You may refer to this post for the ganache recipe. I call it "ganache" but it doesn't actually contain whipping cream. This is because Singapore is really warm and I wanted to pack as much fresh fruit goodness into the filling without turning it too soft. And so I discovered that whipping together white chocolate and butter/shortening creates a relatively stable medium that can accomodate quite a high percentage of fruit without turning too soft. Do press the jam through the sieve to remove any big lumps or it will be difficult to pipe the roses with it.

Here's a dollop of homemade strawberry jam on whipped white chocolate with butter and shortening

Whipped strawberry ganache

I filled a piping bag fitted with a Russian piping tip to pipe the roses onto a baking tray lined with baking sheet. Freeze the piped roses until firm. It's my first try at using the Russian piping tips do pardon the amateurish attempt 😅. I need to use a smaller piping tip too.

Piped whipped strawberry ganache. Love the bits of strawberry peeking out!

Pipe a dollop of soft ganache in the middle of the bottom macaron shell. Carefully arrange the roses in a ring around the dollop. Pipe more ganache to fill the spaces as necessary before putting the top shell on.

I piped some leaves in between the roses using royal icing but this is optional.

Refrigerate for at least 24h before serving.

I made rosette macarons again but with prettier fillings. Checkout this post!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Tsum Tsum Chip and Dale Earl Grey and Chocolate Custard Cream Puffs

I made these Chip and Dale cream puffs along with my cross shaped Éclairs.

Chip is made from chocolate choux pastry case and filled with smooth and creamy chocolate custard. Dale is made from plain choux pastry case and filled with Earl grey custard. You may find the recipe for plain and chocolate Choux pastry case and Earl Grey custard from my cross eclair post. Adjust baking temperature and time accordingly as this shape has small parts that may burn easily. Bake at 180℃ for 20 min. Reduce temperature to 160℃ and bake for another 20 min. Turn off the heat and let it cool for 10 min in the oven. I will share this really rich, smooth and yummy chocolate pastry cream here.

Recipe for chocolate custard
Ingredients:
200g milk
35g sugar
18g cornflour
2 egg yolks
10g cocoa powder
10g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp Kahlua coffee liqueur (you may replace with vanilla)

Steps:
1. Sift together cornflour and cocoa powder  into a bowl. Add sugar and whisk together. Add egg yolks and whisk until a paste is formed. Set aside.

2. Heat milk with vanilla extract and coffee liqueur until it starts to bubble. Remove from heat and slowly pour into egg yolk mixture while stirring all the time.

3. Pour the mixture back into saucepan. Heat on medium low heat while whisking all the time. Keep an eye on the mixture as it will suddenly thicken. Once it thickens, remove from heat and continue whisking. This is to prevent the custard from becoming lumpy. Return to heat while whisking until desired consistency, like curd.

4. Add butter and mix well. Sieve the custard into a bowl. Press a cling wrap over the custard surface. Refrigerate until ready to fill the pastry. You may make this up to a few days ahead of time.

I made the chocolate custard along with Earl Grey custard

Just to share some pictures of making the Choux pastry cases...

Piped Chip and Dale!

Freshly baked Choux cases!

Here's a close-up view of the cross section with yummy custard filling!

Although this design was not specifically requested, my friend who shared this with her Bible study group said that Chip and Dale is her favourite and in time for her birthday! They all loved how yummy it was!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Cheery Bear Reduced-Sugar Matcha Macarons (Mother's Day Special)

Wondering what to get your mum for Mother's Day this year? Why not give her an adorable and yummy treat that's not too sweet! Come and join me for a session of making these reduced-sugar Matcha macarons in the form of cute bears holding flowers.

This design may look familiar to those of you who have been following our blog. That's because they appeared on a number of occasions, including in my Creative Baking: Macarons book.

I am honoured to be invited as a guest chef at BakerzatWork Academy to share this cute bake for those of you who are keen to pick up the basics of the French method of making macarons and at the same time, make something special for your mum.

You may refer to this link for enquires. And this link for registration.

With love,
Phay Shing

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