Baby Shark Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Macarons

I was scrolling through my posts in the blog and realised this has been sitting as a draft for more than a year 😱😂. Long forgotten Baby Shark macarons filled with dark chocolate ganache and raspberry compote! 

I used Swiss meringue method for these macaron shells. Here are some photos of the piped batter. 

Since only a small quantity was required, I made it along with other small quantity requests. 

Details were added in with royal icing and edible marker. 

Here is a closer look at the yummy filling that balances out the sweetness of macaron shells very well! 

You may refer to this post for the dark chocolate ganache recipe. I follow a rather standard formula for all my fruit compotes. For raspberry, I strain out the seeds, weigh the puree and add about 10 to 15% by weight of sugar, a dash of lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Cook over low heat until fruit content is reduced to about half of original weight. 

Let the shells mature with the filling for at heast 24h in the fridge in airtight condition before serving. Always let the macarons sit at room temperature in the airtight condition for at least 15 min before opening. This is to prevent condensation forming on the macaron shells. 

With love,
Phay Shing

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Galaxy Chiffon Cake Truffles Class

New Class Alert! Want to learn how to make these cute Galaxy Chiffon Cake Truffles with me on @howtocakeit? <3 

Join me on June 11th 730pm EST (June 12th 730am GMT+8) where I will be teaching live! You will also get lifetime access to the video tutorial, workbook and private FB group! Sign up here. 

Bundle up with my Chiffon Lollipop class and get 25% off for 2 classes! 

Here's a preview video of the Galaxy Truffles. 

It’s going to be a super cute one! =)

With love,

Susanne

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'Resting Cat' Coconut Pandan Gula Melaka Choux Pastry Class

I love cats so I have decided to make this choux pastry design that showcases one of the things cats love to do...

... Sleeping a lot! 

They can sleep in all sorts of weird positions but perhaps the most common is this curled up cosy position. 

I had a request to incorporate some Asian flavours for choux pastry class so this time round I will be teaching coconut pandan gula melaka diplomat cream. It's a smooth, silky coconut pandan gula melaka cream with pockets of gula melaka goodness. Made without refined white sugar so overall GI is lower, and it is almost dairy-free. 

Another look at the kitties! 

In this class, I will focus on techniques for making choux au craquelin that is crunchy, puffy and hollow inside, like this:

Of course you will also learn how to make, assemble and decorate this cat design. 

If you are interested to attend this class, please click on this link. I will have two runs of this class in July, one on a weekday and another on a weekend. I will also update this blog post with the registration page once it is up. 

With love,

Phay Shing

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Chiffon Cake Lollipops Class

 

My Giant Lollipop says hi! Join me to make my mini 'me's here! 

Excited to join the "How to Cake it" Family of live online classes. 

I will be teaching live on FB, with downloadable workbook, and the video will be available forever! 

Meanwhile here's a short video of the assembly of the giant lollipop (swipe to the last slide). Hope you like it! 

With lots of love,
Susanne

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100% Naturally Coloured Sumikko Gurashi Mango Coconut Macarons

I was super excited when I stepped into Scoop, an Australian wholefoods store, opened near where I live. They have an amazing range of organic dried foods, premade sauces, various non-sugared plant based milk etc. It was the first time I saw green rice too! When I chanced upon some natural food powders that I don't find in Redman (largest baking supplies chain in Singapore), I bought them! Because of these purchases, I had an unplanned bake and made these Sumikko Gurashi mango coconut macarons! They are 100% naturally coloured! 

Tokage, Tokage (real) and Penguin? (Yes those are their names, including the punctuation marks) 

These are the powders I bought, along with organic coconut cream powder (not in the picture ). I supplemented the bake with a little turmeric powder from home to get yellow and create warmer shades of geeen. 

Pandan, spirulina and blue pea flower powders

I was prepared for the bake to turn out "meh" or fail because I haven't had very good experiences with natural sources of food colouring if I want to achieve vibrant colours, especially blue pea flower based ones as it is sensitive to heat and the pH of the mixture it is in. Nonetheless I had to test this out to see if I can use it for my bakes. 

I used the swiss meringue method to create these macarons, adding in the powdered colouring to the almond paste, before the meringue is folded in for each colour. I know this will likely result in visible specks of the powders but since this is only a trial and I didnt need perfect results, I decided to take the short cut. To eliminate or reduce the specks, you should add the powder to some egg whites, leave it to soak for about 10 min, strain it with a very fine sieve and then add the coloured egg whites with sifted dry ingredients to form the almond paste (make sure the correct weight of egg whites are used) . I find this unnecessary for red yeast powder, turmeric powder, cocoa powder and charcoal powder. But for spirulina, pandan and blue pea flower (possibly beetroot as well), it is necessary to take this extra step if you don't want the specks to be seen too obviously. 

You may refer to this post for the detailed steps and recipe for the swiss meringue method. This was what I used for this bake:

Ingredients:

Almond paste

65g almond flour (preferably superfine) 

65g icing sugar (with cornflour already added by manufacturer) 

24g egg whites

3g (1.25 tsp) organic coconut cream powder (optional if you aren't making mildly coconut flavoured shells) 

Swiss meringue 

36g egg whites

47g caster sugar

13g icing sugar (you may replace with caster sugar) 

1/8 tsp cream of tartar (optional) 

Here's a picture of the piped batter. 

For those of you who asked about quantity of powders added, I can only share my reference here for this trial bake and you have to work out how much you want to use, especially if you are using French method instead of Swiss method that I used here as French method doesn't have an almond paste in the equation. 

The almond paste (or mass) for each colour (except yellow and white) is 47g in this bake, with 24g of swiss meringue added after the coloured powders are added. 

Light green: 3/4 tsp pandan powder + 3/32 tsp turmeric powder

Dark green : 1/2 tsp Spirulina powder + 1/32 tsp turmeric powder

Blue: 1/2 tsp blue pea flower powder

I didn't measure the amount of turmeric used for yellow but it is around a pinch or so for the teeny quantity of batter. White is just plain uncoloured batter. 

You can afford to add less blue pea flower powder as I didn't know the colour will be so dark. Tokage is a lighter shade of blue. Do note that out of the 3 powders, blue pea flower powder fades significantly when exposed to prolonged dry heat so the outcome is more of a greyish blue. 

Freshly baked shells! 

Awesome full cross-section! 

I have some thick homemade mango compote on hand so I decided to choose mango coconut as the flavour of filling. The coconut part is a white chocolate buttercream base with coconut cream added.  Feel free to upsize the recipe as necessary. 

Coconut white chocolate buttercream

Ingredients:

40g white chocolate chips (may use couverture or compound, or finely chop from a bar) 

40g unsalted butter

1/8 tsp salt

25g organic coconut cream powder

Steps:

1. Place butter and white chocolate in microwave safe bowl. Heat for 10 sec at medium low power and mix well. Repeat heating and mixing until fully melted. Be careful not to overheat. Don't worry if mixture looks a little separated. Alternatively, you may use the double-boiling method to melt the chocolate and butter. 

2. Add salt and coconut cream and mix well. 

3. Cling wrap and chill the mixture in fridge until firm. Overnight if you wish but it's not necessary. Let it soften again slightly at room temperature until scoopable consistency. 

4. Use an electric mixer (if you upsized by many times) or spatula (if quantity is tiny) to whip up until smooth, light and creamy. 

5. Transfer into piping bag and fill the macaron shells. 

Mango compote can be made by cooking mango puree with about 10-15% by weight of sugar, a dash of lemon juice and a pinch of salt. I usually reduce the mango until it is about half the original weight of puree. This takes patience as you need to be stirring constantly using low heat. 

I had some extra round macarons which I filled too! I purposely left the fibers of the mango in there. Pipe a ring of coconut white chocolate buttercream and fill the centers with mango compote. 

At the time of writing this blog post, I did use the powders again to make naturally coloured macarons with significantly less noticeable specks when I didn't take the shortcut. I hope you find this review and recipe of coconut white chocolate buttercream helpful! 

With love,

Phay Shing

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Hidden Rainbow Chiffon Cake

Rainbows are my favourite sources of inspiration! Many of my cakes have been inspired by rainbows. I was to make this cake over Easter as we remembered God being faithful to His promises and wonderful resurrection of Jesus!

I was really nervous slicing into the cake!

This is actually not my first hidden rainbow chiffon cake but its my most successful one and the very first one I posted. The previous ones were given away so I couldn't get a nice shot myself. 

The recipes of this Hidden Rainbow chiffon cake has been shared in various recipes, namely the Chiffon Cake Rainbow in Book  1: Creative baking Chiffon Cakes, the Sky chiffon cake in Book 3: Deco Chiffon Cake Basics, and the double baked technique in all 3 Deco Chiffon Cakes books.

Hope this special creation made you smile too!

With lots of love,

Susanne

 

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'Pooh in Rat Suit' Mixed Berry Mini Macaron Carousel

It's been a few years since I made a mini macaron carousel! Finally made one again! 

This time, it is a Winnie the Pooh themed carousel with my own spin of dressing him in a rat suit for a little lady born in the year of the Rat. 

Winnie in rat suits! 

I used the Swiss meringue method to make the macaron shells. The Pooh macaron shells are decorated with edible marker and royal icing. As the carousel is a structure, the filling is a very firm strawberry raspberry ganache. 

The carousel with name and age added in! I personally prefer the look of carousels without such distractions so I chose the one without the letterings as the cover photo. 

I hope this mini macaron carousel puts a smile on your face as it did for me! 

With love,

Phay Shing

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Pooh and Friends Chiffon Cake

 

Tigger: "Let's play together!" <3
Can you tell which is cake and which is plushie? =)

Posting another backlog which I made last year! The bundt is made from pandan chiffon cake. I was reminded of this creation when I saw the many egg cakes being posted on social media as Easter is coming. I think hot cross is a better reminder of Good Friday and Easter as its the time when Jesus died on the cross and rose again. Eggs I suppose represent new life and resurrection from what I googled. Anyway, hope you like this sweet creation and may you have a meaningful and blessed Easter.

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Salted Caramel Biscoff Cat Macaron Class (for teens!)

I have decided to conduct a macaron class for teenagers during the June school holidays. This cat face design is the same as the one I intend to teach for adults but a full body version. 

The filling is salted caramel and biscoff swiss meringue buttercream, a flavour that most young people love, including my younger kid! 

In this class, I will teach the basics of French method, how to pipe the simple cat head, how to decorate the face using edible markers and royal icing, as well as demo how to make the fillings. Due to time constraint, the fillings will be demo only but the macaron making and decoration will be fully hands-on. 

If you are interested in this class, please click on this link to register and for more details. 

With love,

Phay Shing

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Heart Shaker Cookies (Culinary Arts Ministry)

 

Sharing this item for my church's culinary arts ministry class this Sunday 28th Mar. May you be blessed by it!

Heart-shaped Shaker Cookies (makes 9 shaker cookies or 18 window-pane cookies)

Ingredients for Cookie Dough
Vanilla Butter Cookie
58g unsalted butter (cold, cut into cubes)
50g castor sugar
28g whole egg (1/2 a whole egg)
¼ tsp vanilla essence (1.25g)
120g all-purpose flour, sifted
15g corn starch
1g salt (1/6 tsp)
Drop of red food colouring (optional)

Candy Window Pane
18g isomalt or crushed clear candies

Decorations
5g sprinkles
8g chocolate chips/candy melts + 1-2g oil/shortening* (*optional: adjust to pipeable consistency)


1. Line a baking sheet/tray with aluminium foil.

2. Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar till pale and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl, and add the egg and vanilla bit by bit. Continue beating till they are well incorporated and the mixture lightens in colour.

3. On low speed, mix in sifted flour, cornstarch and salt bit by bit. Add in red colouring (optional) and mix well.

4. Form the dough into a disc (chill for about half an hour in clingwrap – ideal).

5. If you chill, roll the dough to ¼-inch (0.6-cm) on a baking sheet. Cut out hearts from the dough using a larger 5-cm heart-shaped cutter. Place the cut-out hearts on the baking tray with aluminium foil. Punch out a smaller heart inside the bigger heart using the 3-cm cutter. Reroll the scraps and repeat till all the dough is used up.

If you do not chill, roll the dough to ¼-inch (0.6-cm) directly onto the aluminium foil. Cut out hearts using the larger 5-cm heart-shaped cutter. Remove the excess dough scraps around the hearts. Punch out a smaller heart inside the bigger heart using the 3-cm cutter. Reroll the scraps and repeat till all the dough is used up. You can also bake the cut-out hearts as cookies by themselves.

*Do not overwork the dough, especially with the heat from your hands.

6. Preheat oven to 170^oC (338oF). Check with an oven thermometer to ensure the temperature is accurate so that you do not overbake your cookies by the time the isomalt melts.

7. Add in a thin layer of isomalt or crushed candies powder in the inside of the cookies (for isomalt around 2 tiny coffee stirrer spoons). Distribute evenly. If you are using crushed candies, the layer should be thicker than isomalt.

**See the video here to see the thickness of isomalt you should add for clear window.

 

8. Bake for 18 minutes or until all the isomalt/candies melt.

9. Let the cookies cool completely before lifting off the baking sheet to ensure that the candy has fully set.

10. To assemble the shaker cookie, place sprinkles inside the window pane of one cookie. Melt chocolate in piping bag using a microwave (30s on high) or double-boiler. Pipe a ring of chocolate around the window pane and stick on another cookie. Decorate with more sprinkles if desired.

Hope you like it!

With lots of love,

Susanne

  

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Mango Passionfruit 3D Cat Macaron Class

These may look impressive as 3D standing cat macarons but this class is actually targeted at beginners! 

Design is inspired by Kokoma's 3D deer macarons. 

If you are new to macarons and this character macaron intrigues you, come and join me for this class to make these rather uniquely designed macarons filled with a sour mango and passionfruit ganache! 

Please refer to this link for registration and more details. I will cover the basics of French method and how to pipe, decorate and assemble this car design. The shells are flavoured with mango and passionfruit freeze-dried fruit powders so they taste good on their own too! You will also learn how to make a filling that is not too sweet (sour in fact!), packed full of flavour but firm enough for Singapore's tropical climate. 

What are you waiting for 😉! 

With love,

Phay Shing

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Brioche Wool Roll Bread

 

I was really curious about this trending Wool Roll bread I saw everywhere on social media, first inspired from Apron (youtube). I used a different recipe from the original video as recently I love the rich buttery Brioche bread. I do think the wool roll adds a nice touch to the normal loaf and is quite pretty =). Do check out the original video for the shaping technique. Here is my modified recipe using Brioche dough. I am sharing this as there was quite a number of queries on the recipe after my Instagram post. I really love the rich buttery flavour and soft texture =).

Brioche Wool Roll Bread
105g Bread Flour
1.5g salt
6g castor sugar
1 cold egg (52g)
2g instant yeast
19g cold milk
32g unsalted butter, cold cut into cubes

1. Combine all ingredients except butter and salt in a mixing bowl. Using the dough hook, mix at low speed for 3 mins, then 6 mins at medium speed. Check for window pane by stretching a small piece of dough. Increase by intervals of 1 min until the window pane stage is reached. You can also knead by hand.

2. Add in salt and butter and mix for another 3-5 mins till well-combined and dough is smooth.

3. Give the dough a few folds and round into a ball. Cover lightly with clingwrap or damp cloth and allow to ferment for 1 hr (bulk fermentation).

4. Divide the dough into 3, round each piece into a ball and allow to rest for 10 min (bench time).

5. Use a rolling pin to roll each ball into an oval/rectangle, then use a knife or scraper to cut half of the dough into strips. Roll up the dough starting from the side with no strips. Place the first piece of rolled dough into a lightly greased 8x4-inch loaf pan, then repeat for the other two dough pieces.

6. Proof lightly covered at room temperature for 30 mins or until dough doubles in size and fills up the loaf pan.

7. Lightly egg wash and sprinkle with sugar (optional).  

8. Bake at 210^oC for 14 mins till golden brown and loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

Hope you will enjoy this delicious loaf!

With love,

Susanne

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Cute Puppy Lavender Vanilla Honey Choux Pastries

Wondering what to make for Mother's Day? Why not join me for this class to learn how to make these cute and yummy puppy choux pastries! 

Instead of making the usual cupcakes or cookies, choux pastry might be a more unique treat. Crispy on the outside, cold and creamy on the inside, fragrant and not too sweet! 

I will cover the basics of choux au craquelin (cream puffs with a crispy cookie layer), how to make lavender vanilla honey diplomat cream, and how to assemble this puppy design. This design is naturally coloured so it is a plus point for those of you who are health conscious. Choux pastries have one of the lowest sugar content in all desserts so it may be just the treat you are looking for! 

Can you resist them looking at you this way? 

Click on this link for more details and for registration if you are interested! 

With love,

Phay Shing

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Pooh Bee Chiffon Cake

 

Always wanted to try making a cute animated video on my cakes. Here is my humble attempt. Can you tell what is happening between Pooh and his friends?

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Two-Ingredient Edible Rocks

Not all "bakes" with a wow factor are difficult, expensive and/or time consuming to make. Here is one quick and simple creation that only needs 2 ingredients and can be made in a matter of a few minutes! These realistic looking but edible rocks are presented by the hosts of my Youtube channel. 

My kids said the rocks look so much like the ones they pick up on our reservoir walks 😂. 

I did a video tutorial to show you how this is done! But for easy reference, let me type it out here as well. 

Ingredients :

30g compound white chocolate chips 
6g Oreo cookie crumbs (without cream) 

Steps:

1. Place chocolate chips on a sheet of cling film. Knead it using the film and your hands. The heat and pressure from your hands will melt the chips into one lump. 

2. Scatter some Oreo crumbs in a few additions, kneading until well combined with each addition. Don't worry about making it homogeneous as it looks more natural that way. 

3. Divide the lump of Oreo white chocolate into rocks of various sizes. Use a fresh cling film, gloved fingers or the back of a metal teaspoon to shape the rocks and smooth out the surfaces. 

4. Leave in a cool place to set. 

Youtube video tutorial can be found here. Feel free to scale the recipe up or down. Just keep in mind to use the same ratio of Oreo crumbs : white chocolate = 1:5.

Have fun! 

With love,

Phay Shing

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Mango Passionfruit Cat Macarons

 I was testing out a new flavour combination for both macaron shells and filling in preparation for class material, and decided on a tropical combo of mango and passionfruit. Mangoes are in season now so it's a great time to test this out. And because I love cats, I made these 😊.

I had a hard time deciding which photo to use as the cover photo so I did a poll on Instagram and chose the most popular one as my cover. 

The macaron shells were made using French method but I added freeze-dried mango and passionfruit powders so the shells alone didn't taste too sweet and had a wonderful flavour on its own too! Exactly what I had in mind as my class material has shells that have no filling in a 3D assembly that I am working on. 

Just to share some pictures.... 

Freshly baked macaron shells! These took me over an hour to pipe! 

All the decorated shells! I used black edible marker and royal icing to add in the details. 

Check out the awesome feet! 

I made my own mango compote amd chose slightly sour mangoes for it. My formula for making compote for macaron filling follows this rough formula: add sugar to pureed fruit, about 10-15% by weight of fruit, add a dash of lemon or yuzu juice, add a pinch of salt, and cook over low heat until weight of fruit is reduced to half of original weight. 

Nice and thick mango compote! 

I needed a firm filling as I am testing out for a simple 3D macaron structure that won't soften too much in tropical Singapore. To do that, ganache base is the best as buttercream may not be as firm. You may choose to make passionfruit curd, mango curd, or buttercreams if you wish. 

Firm mango passionfruit ganache

Ingredients:

80g white chocolate, chopped or use chips

20g unsalted butter 

1/8 tsp salt

50g mango compote

4g freeze-dried mango powder*

8g freeze-dried passionfruit powder*

* adjust according to taste. I was going for really tart filling. Add more compote or butter if you want a softer ganache. 

Steps:

1. Melt chocolate, butter and salt together over low heat using microwave or double-boiling. Set aside to firm up to toothpaste consistency. You may chill in fridge for a few minutes to speed it up. 

2. Whip the mixture using a spatula until white and light like buttercream. You may need to repeat chilling and whipping to get to the consistency of buttercream.

3. In another bowl, add freeze-dried fruit powders to mango compote and mix well. 

4. Add one tablespoon of compote at a time to whipped white chocolate mixture and fold it in. 

Whipped white chocolate mixture and mango compote. 

5. Transfer into piping bag and fill the macarons. Store filled macarons in fridge in airtight container for at least 24h before consuming. Before serving, leave the container out at room temperature unopened for 15 to 20min before opening. This is to prevent condensation from forming on the shells 

A close up view of the filling. Look at the bits of fruit! 

I hope these kitties put a smile on your face as it did to me! 

With love, 

Phay Shing

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Light Rye Sourdough Bread

Wasn't intending to post about this, but I had some friends interested in the recipe, so will just share =). In my experience, adding the dough conditioner/improver makes the bread so much more elastic and softer, but some may prefer not to add as it may not be as healthy. Also, this version is not so sour as my family is not into the real sourdough. If you prefer a sour version, you can proof overnight in the fridge to bring our the sourness of the levain. I didn't have a dutch oven, nor a steam oven, but I use a spray to create steam when the bread goes in to develop the crusty crust. This is the simpler homemade version of healthy bread. Hope it helps =)

Light Rye Sourdough (Bulk Fermentation)
80g Bread Flour
20g Rye Flour (can replace with bread flour)
0.3g Malt flour or dough conditioner (optional)
2g Salt
2g Castor Sugar
2g Milk Powder
2g Oil
20g Starter (Levain)
0.5g yeast (1/6 tsp, optional but helps proof faster)
58g water (use cold water as due to heat from mixer)

1. Add all ingredients except water, salt and oil in mixing bowl.

2. Using a dough hook, mix the ingredients at low speed and add in water gradually. Continue kneading for 2 min at low speed.

3. Increase the speed to medium high and knead for another 5 min. After 5 min, check for window pane. If window pane is not reached, increase in intervals of 1 min and check again.

4. Add in salt and oil, and mix for another 1-2 min till dough is uniformly mixed.

5. Cover in cling wrap or towel and allow to proof for 1 hr (or double in size). If not using yeast, proofing time is 3 hrs.

6. Divide the dough into 3, lightly shape into balls. Allow to rest for 10min (bench time) before shaping into batard or boule.

7. Proof for another 45 min or when the loaves double in size.

8. Score by sifting over some flour and using a knife dipped in oil.

9. Bake at 210 for 20 min or until bread is golden brown. Spray steam into the oven once in. After 10 min, open the oven and rotate the tray.


To grow the Starter
Day 1: 50g bread flour + 50g water
Day 2-Day 14: Everyday use 50g starter from previous day + 50g bread flour + 50g water

Day of using starter, remove 10g of starter, add 10g of bread flour + 10g water. Wait 4 hrs till bubbly and active before using.

With love, 
Susanne 

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Mini Cooper Shortbread Cookie on Chocolate Drip Cake

I love a new challenge, much as it can be nerve wrecking sometimes. It pushes me out of my comfort zone and explore new techniques. This bake is one of them. Presenting my Mini Cooper themed chocolate cake! The whole car is made out of shortbread cookie and filled with M&Ms! 

The requestor wanted red car theme for the chocolate drip cake so I thought of experimenting with creating the entire car out of cookie. Although shortbread is a medium I have worked with since my early baking days, I have not built something like this before. I tried to stick to natural food colours as far as possible too. 

Shortbread cookie recipe

Ingredients:

Black

144g plain flour 

1/2 tsp charcoal powder 

1 tsp cocoa powder

100g unsalted butter, softened

50g icing sugar 

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp salt

Red

150g plain flour 

1/8 tsp red powder colouring 

1/ 8 tsp cocoa powder

100g unsalted butter, softened

50g icing sugar 

1/2 tsp strawberry emulco

1/8 tsp salt

Steps:

1. Prepare the car template using plastic file sheets or parchment paper. Line baking tray with parchment paper or perforated mat. I use perforated mat as it helps to retain the shape of cookie cutouts better. I use it for choux pastries too. 

2. For each coloured dough, mix icing sugar, salt and butter until well combined. There is no need to cream until light and fluffy. Just mix with spatula will do. Add vanilla/ emulco and mix well. 

3. Sift together flour and other powdered colouring /flavouring. Fold into butter mixture until no trace of flour seen and a ball of dough forms. 

4. Roll the dough between sheets of parchment paper to thickness of about 6mm. Chill in freezer until firm, at least 30 min. 

5. Towards end of chilling, preheat oven to 150-160C.

6. Use a small knife to trace the car pieces and transfer to perforated mat, leaving a bit of space between cutouts. You may find it helpful to use freezer pack as your work surface to keep the dough firm longer if you live in the tropics like me. 

Dough cutouts on perforated mat on baking tray

7. Bake until firm. Timing may vary according to your own oven. I remove the smaller pieces and allow the larger pieces to bake longer. Smaller pieces need about 15 min and larger pieces about 20-25min. You may wish to reduce the temperature to 140C after 15min.

8. Cool completely before storing or decorating and assembling. 

A zester and specialised sandpaper for ktichen use is handy to grind meshing surfaces so that they sit nicely when you assemble the car. I decorate and glue the pieces together using royal icing. Stiff icing for gluing and medium/flooding consistency for decorating. 

Works in progress cookie pieces! 

Here's a 360° view of the car in this video! 

I mounted the car on a cakeboard and filled it up with M&Ms. 

My ultimate chocolate cake recipe can be found in this post. Do note that the recipe is dairy-free but for this cake I used regular cow's milk instead of soy milk. The cake tastes better after a day or 2 storage in the fridge when the filling and frosting had time to meld together with the sponge. Here's a peek at the chocolate diplomat cream frosting between sponge layers! 

I decided to line the base of the cake with more M&Ms to bring some rainbow cheer! 

Thank God I had great reviews in terms of look and taste! 

With love, 

Phay Shing 

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