3D Monkey Milo Chiffon Cupcakes

I was making a batch of 3D horse cupcakes for a party but decided to bake a couple of monkeys along with them because we are about to usher in the year of the Monkey!

Sitting snugly in cupcake cases :)

I couldn't have made more monkeys as 30 cupcakes were requested for the horse cupcakes. Unlike conventional cupcakes where you can churn out hundreds quickly, 3D chiffon cupcakes without fondant or cream have to be carved and assembled painstakingly and patiently. Nonetheless, I had fun making these simple monkeys :).

Just to share the recipe if more monkeys are made..

Ingredients (makes about 10-12 monkeys):
Milo chiffon cake (20-24 egg shells + 7x7" layer cake)
3 egg yolks
10g caster sugar
42g vegetable/canola oil
42g hot water
30g Milo powder
50g cake flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda (cocoa powder in Milo is not Dutch processed so this ingredient is necessary)
3/4 tsp vanilla extract

4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
45g caster sugar

Light brown layer cake for body parts (one 10x10" tray)
1 egg yolk
8g caster sugar
21g vegetable oil
21g water/milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/10 tsp Dutch processed cocoa powder (or cocoa powder and a pinch of baking soda)
30g cake flour
A pinch of salt

2 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
20g caster sugar

Steps:
1. Prepare egg shells in advance for the monkey heads and bodies. Create a hole at the pointy end for the body and a hole in the middle of the flatter sides of the shell for the heads. Empty the egg shells and wash thoroughly, removing the inner membrane carefully. Air dry thoroughly before use.

2. Dissolve Milo in hot water. Set aside to cool. Prepare a tray of water at base of oven (optional but your cake will be more soft and moist). Line baking trays with baking paper. Preheat oven to 160°C. Set oven rack to second lowest position.

3. Steps for making chiffon is the same so I won't repeat for both colours. Briefly, prepare the egg yolk batter, prepare the meringue, fold the meringue into egg yolk batter in three additions quickly but gently. Carefully spoon the batter into the egg shells until 1/2-2/3 full or pour into baking trays. Tap trays on table to release trapped air bubbles. Bake and unmould eggshells when cool (gently please to avoid tearing the cakes), remove layer cakes immediately and cool with baking sheet over it.

Egg yolk batter
Whisk egg yolks and sugar until pale and thick. Add oil gradually and whisk until well combined. Add water/Milo and vanilla extract, whisk until well combined. Gradually add in sifted cake flour, and salt (and cocoa powder for light brown/ baking soda for dark brown). Whisk until no trace of flour is seen.

Meringue
In a clean metal bowl, beat egg whites with electric mixer until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until firm/stiff peaks form, adding sugar in gradually when the egg whites are reaching soft peak stage.

Baking time
Egg shells: 160°C for 9-10 minutes followed by 135°C for 12-15 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
Layer cakes: 160°C for 9-10 minutes.
Note that baking time may vary as each oven is different.

Assembly
I apologise for the lack of photos as I was rushing to complete. Remember I had 30 other cupcakes to make at the same time :p.

1. Place the body in a cupcake case and attach the head by using a cakepop stick.

2. Cut out strips for the arms from layer cake and attach on using melted marshmellow with a sprinkle of water. You may do mini swiss rolls for the arms if you prefer but I was going for a quick and simple design that still looks good enough.

3. Use a combination of round cookie cutters and a knife to carve out the face and ears.

4. Dissolve Dutch processed cocoa powder in a bit of hot water to make a paste. Paint on the facial features using toothpick.

5. Stick the various parts on using marshmellow glue. You may want to reinforce the connection between ears and head with short segments of toothpicks (or uncooked sphagetti if you are afraid of accidental ingestion). Add on pink bow for the girl and bits of hair for the boy if you wish :).

6. Brush the surface of the cupcakes with vanilla flavoured syrup (Dissolve 10g white sugar in 25ml hot water. Add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract). Store in airtight container in the fridge up to a few days.

My kids got to eat the monkeys :). They had much fun eating them part by part and both of them loved the soft, moist chiffon that is full of Milo goodness! The kids and teachers at the party that I baked for loved the cupcakes that I made too because it's really yummy, with some kids asking for second helpings.

Have a blessed year of the Monkey ahead!

With lots of love,
Phay Shing

'Snoopy in love' Rainbow Tiedye Heart Chiffon Cake

And this is the lovely Snoopy that was lying on the pillowy Rainbow Tiedye Chiffon Cake!

I posted this separately as the previous was a joint post with the Rainbow Tiedye Cake pops. No molds were used, only carving and a lot of work! ;) The bulk of the weight was on the head, which was supported by the hidden surprise so it didn't sink into the soft cake. Thankful it was very well-received, along with some wonderful cookies made by Phay Shing.

It's made for a dear mummy friend who loves Snoopy. Last year I made my first Snoopy cake for her too. Happy birthday dear Ryan!

With lots of love,
Susanne

Some good news to update: The Creative Baking: Chiffon Cakes book will be reaching Malaysia end of this week to next week! It's has been restocked at major bookstores in Singapore too =). Thanks everyone for your kind support!

Unicorn Macaron Carousel (blue pea flower coloured)

This is my first attempt at a macaron structure :). Unicorn carousel!

If only I could mount this on a motorized turntable for display!

I made a few extra unicorns (from my last bake) and various sizes of round macarons to create this carousel. You may refer to my previous post on how to make the unicorn shells.

I made enough round shells to make two carousel structures just in case some shells didn't turn out well so you may wish to half the recipe.

Ingredients:
200g almond meal (preferably superfine)
200g icing sugar
200g caster sugar
160g egg whites, divide into two equal portions + extra to top up (preferably aged but not necessary)
75 ml water
1 tbs dried blue pea flowers (optional if unavailable)
Royal blue, sky blue and white gel food colouring

Steps:
You may refer to the detailed steps in my previous macaron post. I will just briefly describe.

1. Prepare baking trays with circle templates and baking sheets.

2. Prepare blue egg whites by steeping blue pea flowers in 80g of egg whites for an hour. Remove dried flowers and top up with any egg whites to make the portion 80g again.

Before and after 1h of soaking blue pea flowers in egg whites

3. Prepare the mass. Divide mass into two equal portions. Colour one light blue and another portion darker blue. Blue pea flower adds a dull blue tinge to the mass so some artificial colouring is still needed.

4. Prepare Italian meringue. Divide the meringue into two.

5. Fold the meringue into the mass. You may refer to this post for macaron basics such as how to fold and test the consistency of the batter.

Mass (upper pic) and batter (lower pic)

6. Transfer batter into piping bags fitted  with 6-7mm round tip (Wilton #12).

7. Pipe circles of different sizes. Bang trays on table a few times to release trapped air. Dry the shells until you are able to run a finger across the surface.

Piped shells at 2.5cm, 3.5cm, 6cm, 10cm and 13cm diameter

8.Preheat oven to 130°C. Bake the shells at the following times. Note that this is an estimate as each oven is different. Check to see if the feet appears dry towards end of baking time to gauge for doneness.

2.5, 3.5cm: bake for 17-18 minutes, rotate tray halfway.

6cm: bake for 17-18 minutes, rotate tray halfway, 115°C for 7 minutes.

10cm: bake for 17-18 minutes, rotate tray halfway, 110°C for 17-20 minutes.

13cm: bake for 17-18 minutes, rotate tray halfway, 110°C for 22-30 minutes.

Cool the macarons completely before peeling the baking sheet away from the shells.

Freshly baked!

Fill the macarons for supporting pillar with lemon white chocolate. Stick the macarons together with stiff royal icing. Add more icing sugar to the royal icing recipe in the link provided until stiff peaks are able to hold.

Let this supporting structure dry overnight. You may use edible marker to mark the positions of the unicorns with a dot.

Fill the unicorns with lemon white chocolate and stick straws in the middle.

Cut the straws to appropriate length corresponding to the height of the carousel structure.

Assemble the whole structure with stiff royal icing as glue.

Store the carousel at cool room temperature.

Thank God that the carousel and loose pieces of macarons were very well received! My recipients couldn't bear to take apart the carousel!

With love,
Phay Shing


Pre-orders for Creative Baking: Macarons is now open from 10-21 Feb! Don't miss the dates!

Rainbow Tiedye Heart Vanilla Chiffon Cake and Cake pops

I rarely post undecorated chiffon cakes, but this was so pretty by itself I just had to share it!

I really wasn’t so adventurous to make the Rainbow Tiedye again, but it was specifically requested by my friend and in shape of a heart! I’m glad I was able to make a nicer one this time with some practice from the last cake. This is actually a cake with a chiffon Snoopy on top as her son loves Snoopy (will be posting this in future ;))! And this chiffon is vanilla-flavoured, like my rainbow chiffon cake, instead of Yuzu.

I used a 7-inch heart chiffon tin that I bought from TSB (The Story Begins), as well as medium size silicone heart moulds for the chiffon pops. Before you jump into the process, I find it helpful to visualise how thick you want each line to be in order to have equal thickness across the tin/mould before you begin.

I had leftover batter which I used to make 2 smaller heart chiffon pops using silicone hearts mould.

The recipe with picture tutorial is now in Deco Chiffon Cakes book, out at all major bookstores!

Have a sweet week ahead!

With lots of love,
Susanne

First creative chiffon book, Creative Baking: Chiffon Cakes.

Unicorn and Shooting Star Macarons

I have a request for some flying unicorn macarons and I thought rainbow shooting stars would go well with them too :).

These are filled with firm dark chocolate ganache and lemon white chocolate as the party is outdoors.

Update (27/5/18): I have to remove the templates for the unicorns as they are going to be featured in my upcoming Creative Baking: Macaron Basics book. Please be patient and wait for the book release if you would like the template, hopefully some time before Christmas 2018 :)

Recipe for macaron shells
Ingredients (approximately 32 unicorns and 32 shooting stars, 128 shells):
200g superfine almond meal
200g icing sugar
200g caster sugar
160g egg whites, divided into two equal portions
75ml water

White, pink, yellow, green, blue and purple gel food colouring*

*I used a bit of natural pink powder. For macaron bakes that require one or two colours, I try to use natural sources but if there are too many colours it is easier to use gel food colouring.

Steps:
1. Prepare baking trays with A4 paper templates on it. Place a sheet of baking paper on top. Use some Italian meringue to stick the corners of the baking paper down when you have made the meringue.

2. Sift almond and icing sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Add half of the egg whites (80g) and mix well until a thick paste forms. This is the mass.

3. Divide the mass into ratio of 12:3:3:2:2:2 for white:pink:purple:yellow:green:blue by weight and add gel colouring accordingly. I know this ratio is really tricky. I did some math to figure out a rough estimate so that you don't end up with too much excess batter of a certain colour. If you are making purely shooting stars, simply divide mass into 6 equal portions. If you are making only unicorns, use ratio of 6:1:1 for white: pink:purple.

4. Make the Italian meringue. In a clean metal bowl, beat 80g of egg whites with an electric mixer at medium-low speed until foamy and opaque. Do not beat past the soft peak stage. Reduce mixer speed if necessary. In the mean time, heat caster sugar and water in a small saucepan until 115°C. Use a candy thermometer to measure the temperature. It's easier to work on the egg whites and syrup simultaneously with a stand mixer but it's possible with handheld mixer as well although what I used to do was to monitor the syrup temperature while whisking the egg whites manually until it's time to pour the syrup in. When temperature is reached, remove saucepan from heat. Turn up mixer speed to medium high and carefully pour the syrup into the egg whites, avoiding the beater. Continue beating for another 10 minutes until meringue is stiff, glossy and cool.

5. Divide the Italian meringue into portions according to the ratio above or simply use the formula weight of Italian meringue = weight of mass x 0.55. Fold the meringue into the mass in two or three additions using the fold and press motion until batter flows in a slow-moving lava-like way. You may refer to this post for video tutorials of macaron basics like how to fold the batter and test the consistency.

6. Transfer white batter into piping bag fitted with a Wilton #8 tip (about 4-5mm). Transfer the rest into piping bags fitted with Wilton #5 tip.

7. Pipe the batter onto baking tray. You may refer to this post for video tutorials on piping complex shapes. Remember to bang the tray on the table a few times after piping to release trapped air bubbles and flatten any peaks. I had to use the toothpick often for these intricate macarons.

1. Pipe the body 2. Pipe 1st, 3rd and 5th lines of wings and horn 3. Pipe purple mane and tail 4. Pipe 2nd and 4th lines on wings

Update (26/7/17): here's a video tutorial on how to pipe the unicorns!

1. Pipe the rainbow stripes 2. Pipe the star

8. Dry the piped shells for 1-2 hours in air-conditioned room or under a fan until the shells are dry to touch when you run a finger across the surface. Preheat oven to 130°C towards end of drying time. Set oven rack to lowest position.

9. Bake for 10 minutes and rotate the tray.  Bake for another 7-8 minutes before checking on the shells. If the feet appear wet, bake for another 5 minutes at 120°C and check again. Cool the shells on the tray before gently peeling the baking sheet away from the shells.

Freshly baked!

Use edible marker to add on the eyes of the unicorns. I brushed on some glitter lustre dust to give the macarons a slight glittery sheen. Does not show up very well in the photo but it's there.

I filled the macarons with lemon white chocolate or dark chocolate ganache.

Recipe for lemon white chocolate
Ingredients:
150g white chocolate, chopped
Zest of a lemon
28g vegetable shortening
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon paste
1 tsp lemon extract

Steps:
1. Melt white chocolate in microwave oven or over double boiler.
2. Place all other ingredients in small saucepan and heat on low heat until shortening is melted. Heat for a couple of minutes more for any moisture to be released.
3. Gradually add shortening mixture to melted white chocolate, stirring well with each addition.
4. Transfer to piping bag and pipe onto macaron shells

5. Store the macarons at cool room temperature in airtight container.

Recipe for firm dark chocolate ganache
Ingredients:
110g dark chocolate, chopped
40g whipping cream
8g butter
Pinch of salt

Steps:
1. Melt dark chocolate and butter in microwave oven or over double-boiler. Add a pinch of salt and stir well.
2. Heat cream in small saucepan until it starts to bubble. Remove from heat and pour into chocolate.
3. Stir mixture in one direction with a spatula until well combined. Let the ganache firm up a little at room temperature. About 15 minutes.
4. Transfer to piping bag and pipe onto shells.

5. Refrigerate the ganache filled shells for at least 24h until time to serve. Let the macarons sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes before consuming.

Keep a lookout for my next macaron post where I use some unicorns to create a carousel made entirely out of macarons!

Thank God that the macarons were very well received!

With love,
Phay Shing

Pre-orders for Creative Baking: Macarons is now open from 10-21 Feb! Don't miss the dates!

Dr McStuffin-themed Tier Chiffon Cake

This is a very sweet and soft Dr McStuffin-themed creation. It’s my first attempt at making a stethoscope from chiffon cake roll and I had fun making the huge Band-Aid with a heart from layer chiffon cake.

The design of the 2-tiers are inspired by the sweet Dr McStuffin’s usual get-up: striped purple-white top with a pink skirt. I haven’t been making stripey chiffon cakes since the Navy Stripes Gun Chiffon Cake over a year ago. The recipe I used was similar, with the blue portion of the batter replaced by purple batter. For the base, I used the kids’ favourite Strawberry yoghurt chiffon cake. 

My friend shared the cake was sooo yummy so that was really encouraging!

With love,
Susanne

'Mandarin Oranges and Flowers' Chiffon Cupcakes (video tutorial for shaping the oranges included!)

This is the third year I am making "Mandarin oranges" for Chinese New Year! This time round, I made some chiffon cupcake flowers along with them too :).

People had to do a double-take when they first saw these "oranges' two years ago, thinking that they were real oranges! I fooled my elder kid's teachers when I made them again last year for him to bring to school. Quite a number of people have tried the recipe and gave a thumbs up so do give it a try. They have successfully replicated the oranges too because it's one of the easiest creative chiffon items to make :).

You may refer to the detailed steps for the oranges and picture tutorial for shaping here in my very first attempt. I have modified the recipe last year and used it again this year but with slightly less sugar used as my mum's colleague requested for less sweet cakes.

Mandarin oranges chiffon cupcakes (makes 8 baked in 8.5cm glass bowls):
Ingredients:
2 egg yolks (60-65g eggs)
10g caster sugar
26g canola/vegetable oil
28g mandarin orange juice
1.5 mandarin orange zest (about 5g)
1/4 tsp orange emulco (optional)
38g cake flour
Pinch of salt
Orange gel food colouring

3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
30g caster sugar

White compound chocolate
Matcha powder

Steps:
Follow the steps in my original recipe except place the rack at second lowest position in the oven and bake at 160°C for 10 minutes and 140°C for 15-22 minutes. This is to prevent the batter from rising too fast and cracking, and to prevent the oranges from browning. Do check for doneness with a toothpick. It is safer to overbake a little than to underbake. Note that each oven is different so use the baking time as a guideline. It is optional to invert the glass bowls to cool the cupcakes. You may wish to place a tray of water at the base of the oven to introduce steam as well but it is optional. You may use a combination of hand unmoulding and a metal teaspoon to release the cakes from the glass bowls.

 On the spur of the moment, I decided to try playing around with making a simple video tutorial for shaping the oranges, which may be clearer than seeing the picture tutorial I made two years ago. I hope you find it helpful! Pardon the amateurish attempt as I am still new to playing around with video editing while multitasking.

Update (18/1/17): please checkout this post for the updated version for shaping the base of the orange cupcakes using the mould that the cakes were baked in instead of using your hands. It's much neater!

Update (26/12/20): I thought I might as well include an updated photo of shaping the oranges in this blog post. Simply invert and insert the baked cakes back into the glass bowls they were baked in. The bowl will naturally shape the base of the oranges 😊. 

Here's a photo of some of the shaped orange cupcakes :)

Go on and make some to foolbless your family and friends this Chinese New Year :).

My mum's colleague requested for some orange flavoured flower cupcakes after she saw and tried the ones I made for my mum last year. So here are some sunflower and daisy cuppies for her :).

Initials of each recipient on the cupcakes!

You may find the detailed recipe and steps for making the sunflower in our newly launched Creative Baking: Chiffon Cakes book :).



I tried to use natural sources of food colouring as far as possible to colour the flowers and the highlights.

Getting geared up for CNY! Thank God that the cupcakes were very well received!

With lots of love,
Phay Shing

Solar System 2-tone Cinnamon Chiffon Cake (naturally coloured with Blue pea flowers and Charcoal)

Happy 7th Birthday to my dearest firstborn! I made a Solar system chiffon cake for my future scientist/geek who loves these! I also worked hard on my planetary facts and tried my best to get their placement/size/design as accurate as possible hehe. So from the Sun, they are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupitar, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto. God is amazing at making all these!

My MIL gave me two packs of Ceylon grounded cinnamon (which they say are the best), so I tried out these on the cake. I added 1 tsp cinnamon powder to my usual vanilla chiffon cake recipe (below). The taste wasn’t that strong so I would recommend adding 1.5-2 tsp (which other recipes use) the next time. In my case, I didn’t dare add more as it created a lot of brown specks on the batter.

5 egg yolks
33g sugar
65g vegetable oil
70 ml water
8 ml vanilla extract
100g cake flour
1 tsp cinnamon powder (recommend adding 2 tsp in future)

7 egg whites
75g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

I divided the batter 1/3 and 2/3. I added 1 tsp charcoal powder and blue pea flower extract (35 flowers in 10 ml hot water) to the 2/3 portion and only blue pea flower extract to the 1/3 portion. I made the blue-black boundary curved to represent the halo from the sun. The final colour was a bit dull, so I painted the whole cake with more blue pea flower extract (now have an abundance thanks to my MIL). Lastly for the planets, I baked chiffon cake in round cake pop molds of different sizes and created stripes, marbling effect and patches by spooning in the batter differently.

My son had great fun distributing the planets and telling everyone about them yesterday! Thank God so much for helping him grow.

With lots of love,
Susanne

Barnyard Animals Assorted Macarons

Here are some barnyard animals macarons in assorted flavours!

There's salted egg yolk swiss meringue buttercream (smbc), lemon smbc with lemon curd, and chocolate and mixed berries smbc as fillings! These macarons appear at the same party as the barnyard animal cookies.

I have to confess that these macarons were made from leftover batter I had during my last macaron mania when I made full bodied Hello Kitties, guinea pig stuffed toy macarons and Christmas macarons all in one sitting! I was going to call it a day when I suddenly received news that I might not be able to bake these barnyard macs as planned in a separate session. Tired as I was, I pressed on to bake as many animals as I could. That's why the uneven numbers for each type of animal, based on whatever coloured batter was left.

For your convenience I will type out the recipe for macaron shells here, assuming same numbers of shells for each animal.

Ingredients (makes about 40-50 4cm macarons, 80-100 shells):
200g almond meal/ground almond, preferably superfine
200g icing sugar (with or without cornstarch is fine)
200g caster sugar
75ml water
160g egg whites, divide into two equal portions (preferably aged but not necessary)

Charcoal powder
Pink, yellow, red and black gel food colouring

Steps:
1. Prepare baking trays with paper templates of the animal designs on it. Place a sheet of baking paper on top. Use some Italian meringue to stick the corners of the baking paper down when you have made the meringue. You may make your own templates by selecting images of animals you like from Internet, copy and pasting many times in a Word document.

2. Sift almond and icing sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Add half of the egg whites (80g) and mix well until a thick paste forms. This is the mass.

3. Divide the mass into ratio of 4:2:1:1 for white:pink:grey:black by weight. You will have excess black but it's easier to work with this ratio. Add a pinch of charcoal powder for grey. Use a combination of charcoal powder and black gel colouring for black to get a really deep shade of black.

4. Make the Italian meringue. In a clean metal bowl, beat 80g of egg whites with an electric mixer at medium-low speed until foamy and opaque. Do not beat past the soft peak stage. Reduce mixer speed if necessary. In the mean time, heat caster sugar and water in a small saucepan until 115°C. Use a candy thermometer to measure the temperature. It's easier to work on the egg whites and syrup simultaneously with a stand mixer but it's possible with handheld mixer as well although what I used to do was to monitor the syrup temperature while whisking the egg whites manually until it's time to pour the syrup in. When temperature is reached, remove saucepan from heat. Turn up mixer speed to medium high and carefully pour the syrup into the egg whites, avoiding the beater. Continue beating for another 10 minutes until meringue is stiff, glossy and cool.

5. Divide the Italian meringue into portions according to the ratio above or simply use the formula weight of Italian meringue = weight of mass x 0.55. Fold the meringue into the mass in two or three additions using the fold and press motion until batter flows in a slow-moving lava-like way. You may refer to this post for video tutorials of macaron basics like how to fold the batter and test the consistency.

6. You may create the dark pink features of the pig and red and yellow features of the chicken using macaron batter. If you are doing so, scoop out about 2 tbs of pink batter and add more pink colouring to get a darker pink. You can safely overfold this portion. Scoop out about 2 tbs of white batter for each of the colours for the chicken and colour accordingly. Alternatively, you may add on these using royal icing after baking the shells.

7. Transfer batter into piping bag fitted with round tips of appropriate size. I usually use Wilton #10 or 12 for larger features, #7 or 8 for medium sized features and #5 for small features. Pipe the batter onto baking tray. You may refer to this post for video tutorials on piping complex shapes. Remember to bang the tray on the table a few times after piping to release trapped air bubbles and flatten any peaks.

8. Dry the piped shells for 1-2 hours in air-conditioned room or under a fan until the shells are dry to touch when you run a finger across the surface. Preheat oven to 135°C towards end of drying time. Set oven rack to lowest position.

9. Bake for 10 minutes and rotate the tray. Reduce the temperature to 130°C and bake for another 7-8 minutes before checking on the shells. If the feet appear wet, bake for another 5 minutes at 120°C and check again. Cool the shells on the tray before gently peeling the baking sheet away from the shells.

Baked shells!

Prepare some royal icing to decorate the shells.

Freshly decorated!

You may refer to this post for my basic low-sugar smbc recipe and this post for lemon curd recipe.
For the respective flavours of creams:
Chocolate: Add 32g melted dark chocolate for every 100g of smbc
Mixed berry: Add 16g raspberry/blackberry/strawberry puree + 1/4 tsp strawberry paste for every 100g of smbc
Salted egg yolk:Add 3 steamed and mashed salted egg yolk + 1 tbs milk + 1/2 tsp vanilla extract for every 125g of smbc
Lemon: Add 35g lemon curd for every 100g smbc

Note that smbc can be made and frozen in advance. If using defrosted smbc, whip the smbc until light and fluffy before adding the flavourings. Mix well with a hand whisk or electric mixer.

Adding salted egg yolk to smbc

Piping on the various flavoured creams

Always let the assembled macarons rest in the fridge in airtight container for at least 24 hours before serving if possible to let the flavours mature and shells to soften a little.

Thank God that these were very well received at the party! I was told that the macarons disappeared very fast from the dessert table at the party! Even elderly folk who do not like food that is too sweet loved it! The dear lady who ordered these was smart enough to sneak some for herself before serving at the party :)

With love,
Phay Shing

Rainbow Unicorn Pink Ombre-Rainbow Tier Chiffon Cake

This is a sweet dreamy creation combining Pink Ombre chiffon cake with Rainbow chiffon cake, topped by a Chiffon cake Rainbow and Chiffon cake Unicorn! The recipes for the Rainbow and Ombre chiffon cakes, as well as Chiffon rainbows are in the Creative Baking: Chiffon Cakes book that just came out this week in all major bookstores (Popular, Kinokuniya etc.) in Singapore! So excited! Do keep a lookout! =)

With lots of love,
Susanne

Barnyard Animals Brown Sugar Cookies

Here are some simple barnyard animal brown sugar cookies :)

                    

These cookies appear at the same party as the barnyard animal macarons. I am glad to work with a simple design that is cute at the same time :). Thankfully, I am given some reference pictures by the requester so I have designs that I could refer to.

I feel a little like a broken tape recorder when I post brown sugar cookies :p. But what has to be mentioned still has to be mentioned. You may find the recipe for the cookies and royal icing over here. I have not changed the recipe as I always get very good reviews for the cookies in terms of looks and taste. You may make your own templates by referring to this post. Baking time varies according to size and thickness of your cookies, and each oven is different so do use your eye as a gauge for doneness of cookies. Don't worry, the recipe is very forgiving. I err on the side of baking longer (but without burning the cookies) to keep the cookies dry as they soften a little when iced. These cookies are meant to be the soft and chewy type so you don't have to worry about it having a "lao hong" texture. They keep very well in airtight condition for up to a month plus too.

Just to share a couple of pictures of work-in-progress cookies when I remembered to take photos. Not many because I was busy with icing another batch of cookies at the same time :p

Nearly done! Left the faces!

Done!

Thank God these were very well received at the party! I am not joking when I tell you people who request for brown sugar cookies from me for the second or third time hide some for themselves before offering to guests because they love the taste so much!

With love,
Phay Shing