Presenting my last post and last macaron carousel for the year...A beary cute macaron carousel!
A young lady wanted me to make this for her boyfriend's birthday which falls on the last day of the year. This customized carousel includes things that are special to them...bears, hearts and a duckie :). It's the first time I am including a fancy macaron as a decorative piece right at the top of the carousel.
I used the reduced-sugar macaron shell recipe. 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, as well as the template for the bears. You may refer to my video tutorials for macaron basics and piping of complex shapes on the blog too. You may refer to this post for the dimensions of the shells required to make the carousel and the respective baking times. I piped a scalloped roof like the one similar to the sheep macaron carousel as I think it's really pretty and it is very helpful for positioning the paper straws during the assembly. Checkout the sheep carousel post for detailed steps of assembly.
Just to share some photos of the process...
Piping out the various parts...
Freshly baked shells!
I decorated the duck and bears with black edible marker. Heart sprinkles were attached onto the bears' hands with a bit of royal icing. Some peach coloured lustre dust was added to give the bears rosy cheeks.
Lavender Earl Grey flavour was requested for the filling. You may refer to this post for the filling recipe.
Lavender white chocolate filling for white bear.
Assembled bears and duck!
It's always a joy to watch the pieces come together to form a wonderful structure :).
I made this very sweet ‘Lego Friends’ cake a while back for my friend’s lovely daughter. The colour palette followed the ‘Lego Friends’ theme closely – sweet pastel girly shades.
For the yellow base cake, I used Soy milk chiffon recipe from ‘Unicorn’ Soy Milk Chiffon, but non-reduced egg yolk recipe because instead of a whiter cake, I required a yellow Lego cake, so here 5 egg yolks were used. The taste will be slightly more 'egg-y' than a reduced egg yolk recipe. My friend shared it was very yummy!
Soy milk chiffon (8-inch chiffon tube pan)
5 egg yolks
33g castor sugar
66g vegetable/corn oil
76 g soy milk
5g vanilla extract
80g Prima cake flour
Pinch of salt
20g soy milk powder
*More sources and methods of natural food coloring can be found in 'Deco Chiffon Cakes' book (my 2nd chiffon book).
For the blocks, I baked coloured chiffon cake batter in baking trays-lined with baking paper (both thick: 3-cm thick and thin: <1-cm thick). I cut out big square blocks from the 3-cm thick cakes, and smaller round circles from the thin cakes. Then I ‘glued’ the circles on the blocks using melted marshmallows. You can combine a few colours into one tray! I also cut out some butterflies and stars from the thin sheet cakes.
With lots of love,
Susanne
*Sources of dried Gardenia yellow and blue pea flowers were bought by my MIL from Bangkok. Apparently it's common in markets there.
This is the third consecutive year I have been making logcakes for my extended family and Susanne's family. It seems to have become a tradition 😜! As usual, my preference is to make Christian themed Christmas bakes for my loved ones because that's what Christmas is really about -- good news of God's salvation plan through the birth of Jesus. I have decided to make angel macarons to adorn the Pandan kaya gula melaka sponge and pudding logcake that I have made. Why angels? Because they brought the joyous news of Jesus' birth to the shepherds. Why Pandan kaya gula melaka flavour? Because these were very very well received by both families last year!
The angels with the star were so dreamy and cute I had to take a shot of them alone!
Recipe and assembly instructions of the log cake can be found here. I followed it almost exactly because it's really that good. I get rave reviews not just from my family and Susanne's family, but all the people who have tasted it. I used coconut oil instead of canola oil and used a drop of Pandan paste instead of 1/4 tsp to let the natural Pandan colour shine through. The cake tastes best after 2-3 days of storage.
What's new is the design of angel macarons and type of filling so I shall write in detail in this post. I made the star macarons as cake deco last year. It can be found here.
I used the reduced sugar macaron shell recipe for the macarons. 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.
Piping the angels involves quite a long sequence of piping as certain parts have to dry partially before adding the next part. Ratio of white:brown:beige is 5:2:1 for the respective coloured batter. I used a little dutch processed cocoa powder and a little orange gel food colouring for brown. I used a tiny dip of orange colouring to create beige. Some white gel colouring was used to keep the white on the angel white too.
Freshly baked shells! I baked these along with other designs...That's why the unicorns in the background :p.
The halo is made from royal icing that is piped on baking sheet and dried thoroughly in the oven using the fan mode at 60°C for an hour or until dry. Carefully peel the baking sheet away from the halo. The icing is fragile so handle with care.
Add on details using edible marker. The rosy cheeks were created by dabbing on a little peach lustre dust with a small brush.
Use a fine brush dipped in vodka to wash out the markings from edible marker to create some shading effect.
Stick the halo on using some royal icing and let it dry thoroughly before filling the shells.
Pandan caramel white chocolate ganache
(Fills about 30 macarons)
Ingredients:
80g white chocolate, chopped
15g unsalted butter
15g vegetable shortening
35g heavy cream
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/2 tsp Pandan paste
1/2 tsp caramel flavouring
1/4 tsp coconut flavouring
1/4 tsp lemon juice (optional. To counter sweetness)
Lemon juice, Pandan paste, coconut flavouring and caramel flavouring
Steps:
1. Melt chocolate, butter and shortening in a microwave safe bowl at medium power for 20 seconds. Stir and repeat until everything is melted and smooth. Alternatively, you may use the double boiling method. Be careful not to overheat the white chocolate or it will harden.
2. Heat cream in a small saucepan until it starts to bubble. Pour into bowl with melted white chocolate. Use a spatula to stir in one direction until well combined.
3. Add salt and stir until dissolved. Add all the flavourings and lemon juice one at a time. Stir until well combined.
4. Freeze for 2 minutes and whip with spatula until smooth. Freeze for 1 minute and whip with spatula again until smooth. Repeat until texture is even and creamy. You may use an electric mixer to whip at low speed if you don't want to work out your arm muscles.
Transfer ganache into piping bag and pipe onto the macaron shells.
Store the assembled macarons in the fridge for at least 24 hours before serving. Store the macarons separately from the logcake as the moisture from the cake will turn the macaron shells soggy very quickly. Any unused ganache may be stored in the fridge for a few weeks or in the freezer for a few months. Just bring it to room temperature before using.
We’ve heard of Black glutinous rice chiffon cake (Pulut hitam chiffon cake), but what about White glutinous rice chiffon cake? This is one experimental flavour that I had been wanting to try for a long time, as I love 'Tang yuan' (sweet glutinous rice balls). I made the glutinous rice flour chiffon cake with pandan ‘Tang shui’. The resulting flavour is very fragrant, with glutinous rice and pandan fragrance/flavour, and sticky chewy feel of glutinous rice! My 2-year old loved it so much she finished 3/4 of the plain 6-inch cake herself! It may be a great way to clear leftover glutinous rice flour from making 'Tang yuan'.
Glutinous Rice Flour Chiffon Cake
Very soft slice
Last year, a sifu friend had also challenged me to make a chiffon version of ‘tang yuan’ but I was too busy then. So this year, I finally tried making a chiffon “Tang yuan”, and with Glutinous rice flour chiffon flavour as it’s so apt. I actually made this for my own birthday cake =p. Everything including the bowl and spoon is made from chiffon cake, and my kids had such fun digging into it!
My simple birthday cake for my small family of 5 =p
In my first trial of the recipe, I used all (100%) white glutinous rice flour. The resulting chiffon cake was really soft and yummy, full of glutinous rice flavour, however, the cake dented easily (glutinous rice is sticky, so when compressed, the cake sticks together and doesn’t spring back). So finally I used mixture of glutinous rice flour and cake flour so that the texture is more bouncy, but still has the sticky chewy feel of glutinous rice and lovely fragrance. I used pandan water which further enhances the flavour! I feel nostalgia eating this chiffon cake!
Here I’ve shared first the White Glutinous Rice Flour Chiffon Cake recipe for a normal tube pan (6-inch) first for those who are interested in the flavour. Then followed by the fun ‘Tang yuan’ version. Hope you will like this interesting creation!
Glutinous Rice Flour Chiffon Cake (6-inch tube pan)
2 egg yolks
13g castor sugar
26g coconut/vegetable oil
32g pandan water (water boiled with pandan leaves) or pandan juice
30g white glutinous rice flour
10g cake flour (Prima)
Pandan flavoring (few drops, will be more fragrant)
3 egg whites
30g castor sugar
¼ cream of tartar
*You can also use all (100%) white glutinous rice flour, but the texture won’t be so bouncy.
Here’s a picture of the glutinous rice flour I used (same as for 'Tang yuan'):
1. Prepare pandan water (boil a small saucepan of water with a bunch of pandan leaves) like how you prepare ‘tang shui’, omitting the rock sugar.
*You can also use leftover ‘tang shui’, ie pandan water boiled with rock sugar, but you will need to omit the sugar for egg yolk batter and reduce sugar for meringue accordingly, so that the cake will not be too sweet.
*Other substitutes: you can also use pandan juice, or water with pandan flavouring (1g).
2. Preheat oven to 160°C.
3. Whisk egg yolks with sugar until light and well-mixed.
4. Add in oil and mix well. Then add pandan water/juice and whisk till well-combined.
5. Whisk in sifted glutinous rice flour and cake flour. Mix till well-combined and no more lumps.
6. Prepare meringue:
a. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy.
b. Add in ½ castor sugar for meringue and whisk at high speed till soft peaks form.
c. Add in rest of the castor sugar for meringue and whisk till firm peaks form, or just the point of stiff peak.
7. Gently fold in meringue into egg yolk batter 1/3 at a time. *Fold in unidirectional, gentle strokes and do not overfold.
8. Pour the batter into the tube pan. Gently tap to remove bubbles.
9. Bake at 160°C for 15 min, then 140°C for 20-25 min, or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.
Texture is really soft! I love the light fragrant smell of the pandan with glutinous rice.
‘Tang yuan’ version of Glutinous Rice Flour Chiffon Cake (one ‘bowl’)
2 egg yolks
13g castor sugar
26g coconut/vegetable oil
32g pandan water (water boiled with pandan leaves) or pandan juice
20g white glutinous rice flour
20g cake flour (Prima)
Pandan flavoring (few drops, will be more fragrant)
3 egg whites
30g castor sugar
¼ cream of tartar
*I used 1:1 white glutinous rice flour: cake flour here, so that texture is more bouncy and easier to handle.
1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Prepare a small glass/metal bowl (4-5 inch), silicone cake pop mold, and a baking paper-lined 8-inch baking tray.
2. Whisk egg yolks with sugar until light and well-mixed.
3. Add in oil and mix well. Then add pandan water/juice and whisk till well-combined.
4. Whisk in sifted glutinous rice flour and cake flour. Mix till well-combined and no more lumps. I used a slightly higher ratio of cake flour here so that the cake is easier to handle.
5. Spoon out 5 tsp batter to make the ‘soup’. Add a dip of cocoa powder or chocolate paste to colour the batter slightly browner. Spoon out 5 tsp batter to make the ‘tang yuan’ cake pops. Add desired ‘tang yuan’ color eg pink or green (using pandan paste). You can also leave the ‘tang yuan’ cake pops plain-colored.
6. Prepare meringue:
a. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy.
b. Add in ½ castor sugar for meringue and whisk at high speed till soft peaks form.
c. Add in rest of the castor sugar for meringue and whisk till firm peaks form, or just the point of stiff peak.
7. Transfer out 10 tbsp meringue for the brown ‘soup’ batter, and 10 tbsp meringue for the ‘tang yuan’ batter. Leave the rest of the meringue for the plain batter.
8. Gently fold in meringue into respective egg yolk batters 1/3 at a time.
9. Spoon the plain batter into the bowl till 80% full. Bake at 160°C for 15 min, then 140°C for 20 min or until skewer comes clean. Pour the rest of the plain batter side-by-side with the brown batter into 8-inch baking pan to make sheet cake. Bake at 160°C for 15 min. Lastly spoon the ‘tang yuan’ batter into small cake pop molds and bake at 160°C for 12 min.
10. Allow the cakes to cool completely on a wire rack before unmoulding by hand.
11. To assemble, use a large round cutter to cut a depression into the bowl cake. Use the same round cutter to cut a circle from the brown sheet cake to fill the hole (to make the ‘soup’).
12. Cut the ‘tang yuan’ cake pops into halves and place them on the ‘soup’. Cut a ‘spoon’ shape (oval plus long strip) from plain sheet cake and gently insert a bamboo skewer in.
Happy Winter Solstice! Hope you will like this new flavour and cute creation! May this be a meaningful and special day of "reunion" for you with your families. Here are my kids having some fun.. =)
With lots of love,
Susanne
Finally a Chinese Edition is coming (22/12/17)! Preorders open now.
I have so many requests for unicorn macaron carousels that I have decided not to post some of them as separate blog posts because the designs are more or less the same 😅. But this particular one got an extra "Awww..." reaction from me because of the sweet pastel rainbow letterings of the birthday girl's name on it.
It looks so sweet I thought I have to share it :). I filled it the same way as this pink carousel, with lavendar and Earl grey white chocolate filling. Creating the name with royal icing took a much longer time since I have to make 6 different colours of royal icing. Simply pipe the letters on baking sheet and dry thoroughly before peeling off carefully and sticking them onto the carousel with a small dab of royal icing.
Here's one sweet pink unicorn carousel with strawberry white chocolate filling that didn't get posted earlier but I will just include it in this same post so it gets showcased before the year ends.
And here's the last unicorn carousel that I am assembling for the year.. yes it's another pink one! But this is the first carousel where I incorporated 3 different flavours. Salted caramel for the unicorns and lavendar Earl Grey for the carousel structure.
I tried incorporating homemade salted caramel into the white chocolate-vegetable shortening filling base but it wasn't firm enough so the unicorns kept slipping down the pole. I had to make an "artificial" version by adding more sea salt and caramel flavouring to create the salted caramel taste. Glad that I managed to pull it off!
You may refer to this post for details of baking the various sizes of shells and this post for assembly instructions of the carousel.
I used the reduced sugar macaron shell recipe for the carousels. 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.
December is my favourite time of the year because of Christmas! Since the chiffon cake has a tube hole in the centre, I thought it was perfect for making a Christmas ‘mistletoe ring’ or ‘wreath’! Last year, I thought to use the pretty bundt shape for an improved ‘wreath’ shape. I tried baking chiffon cake in a silicone bundt and shared that the bundt allows chiffon cake to grip well onto it, such that the texture is soft and fluffy like normal chiffon cakes! If you don't have silicone bundt, you can also use a metal bundt pan which is not non-stick (I have one as well and it can be used).
This year, I had to inspiration to make a Rainbow chiffon bundt. I made this cake for my church DG Christmas party and so thankful it was well-received; they shared that it was very soft and yummy! I made the leaves 'ring' smaller and thinner this time, so that the rainbow base would be the highlight. The flavour is vanilla-pandan flavour.
In this post, I also made a simple video tutorial to give a better visual guide to soft and firm peaks, and how to whip it easily in 3 easy steps! Very thankful for my new assistant, Kenwood Chef Sense which whips up fine quality meringue at half the time I used to with hand mixer. The Kenwood Chef Sense won the reddot design award Gold in 2015. I’m not surprised, as it packs a powerful motor (1200W) and generous capacity (6.7 L which can whip 16 egg whites) within a slim 29.5 cm width x 35 cm height frame, which fits right into my very tight kitchen. I also love other well-thought out details like the volume graduations on the bowl that makes measuring and monitoring the steps so easy, as well as the splash guard. Here goes the recipe!
Rainbow Bundt Chiffon Cake Recipe (8-inch Silicone/Metal bundt)
5 egg yolks
33g castor sugar
65g vegetable/coconut oil
70 g water
100g Prima cake flour
8g vanilla extract
1/3 tsp pandan paste (for green)
Pink, blue, yellow natural or gel food coloring
1. Preheat oven to 160°C. *You do not need to grease the pan.
2. Whisk egg yolks with sugar until light, fluffy and well-mixed.
3. Add in oil and mix well. Then add water and vanilla extract and whisk till well-combined.
4. Whisk in sifted cake flour and mix till well-combined and no more lumps.
5. Divide the egg yolk batter into 4, approximately 4 tbsp each colour. Add in respective food coloring into each portion (I used pandan paste for the green).
6. Prepare meringue:
Video tutorial: "Whipping from soft to firm peaks in 3 easy steps!" - Visual guide/description to soft and firm peaks
a. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy.
b. Add in ½ castor sugar for meringue and whisk at high speed till soft peaks form.
c. Add in rest of the castor sugar for meringue and whisk till firm peaks form, or just the point of stiff peak.
7. Divide meringue into 4.
8. Gently fold in meringue gently into different coloured egg yolk batter 1/3 at a time. *Fold in unidirectional, gentle strokes and do not overfold.
9. Spoon a different coloured batter into 2 grooves of the bundt each using a teaspoon. Repeat until the grooves of the bundt are all filled up.
10. Bake at 160°C for 15 min, then 140°C for 30+ min, or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.
11. Allow pan to cool completely on a wire rack.
12. Unmould the chiffon cake by hand (see video tutorial ‘Hand unmoulding Chiffon cakes for a clean finishing’). For the bundt, after peeling the cake from the sides of the pan, jiggle the pan, then invert and push out the cake of the bundt by flipping the surface over.
Decor: I cut ‘leaves’ from a pandan chiffon sheet cake using a holly leaf cutter. Similarly, I cut ‘flowers’ and ‘bow’ from red sheet cake. I use melted marshmallows to stick them on in a ring.
It's been some time since I had a request for iced gems so I am glad to take a break from macarons to make these :). Earl Grey salted caramel, Neapolitan and Lavender flavours were requested.
You may find the recipe for Neapolitan iced gems from here and Lavendar iced gems from here. The old Earl Grey salted caramel gems recipe can be found together with the Neapolitan one. Ever since I discovered Earl Grey tea powder, I have been using it for a range of bakes but have yet to use it for iced gems. I decided to incorporate it here so I will just provide the updated recipe for this flavour. I use homemade salted caramel and the recipe can be found here.
Just to share some photos of the process...
Infusing hot milk with dried Lavender flowers. Yes I use the real stuff!
Top: fresh milk, Bottom left: lavendar infused milk, bottom right: Earl grey milk tea with salted caramel. All have vanilla extract added in.
The biscuit dough for the respective flavours.
I tried using an oval scalloped cookie cutter for some of the biscuit bases. I think I prefer simple 2cm round cookie cutter.
Icing Lavender gems! Remember to pipe some icing onto baking sheet to test for royal icing doneness during drying in the oven.
Neapolitan royal icing! Looks pretty from this angle coming out from the piping tip too!
I use a combination of Earl Grey tea powder and dried tea leaves from the teabag for the royal icing.
The icing firms up and lightens in colour after whipping. I used a spatula to whip by hand all 5 different flavours in this batch!
Icing Earl grey salted caramel gems!
Recipe for Earl Grey salted caramel biscuit
Ingredients:
(Makes about 96 biscuits)
30g hot milk
1.25tsp Earl grey tea powder
25g salted caramel
1/4 tsp caramel essence/flavouring (optional)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
105g plain flour
1/16 tsp fine sea salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
36g vegetable shortening
Steps:
1. Dissolve tea powder, salted caramel, caramel flavouring and vanilla in hot milk.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
3. Rub in shortening into the flour mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs.
4. Gradually add the milk mixture to the flour and shortening mix and knead into a ball of dough. You may not need all the milk. Once a ball of dough is formed without breaking apart, you can stop adding the milk.
5. Roll to 3-4mm thick and cut out circles with cookie cutter (I usually use a 2cm round cutter). Place the cut-out on baking tray lined with baking sheet.
6. Bake in preheated oven using the fan mode at 170°C for 13-15 minutes or until brown. Cool completely before icing.
Earl Grey caramel royal icing
Ingredients:
112g icing sugar
8g meringue powder
20-24g hot water
1.5 tsp Earl grey tea powder
1 teabag worth of Earl grey tea leaves
1/2 tsp caramel essence
1/16 tsp salt
Steps:
1. Sift icing sugar, meringue powder and salt together in a grease-free mixing bowl.
2. Dissolve tea powder in hot water. Add caramel essence (if you have) to the tea.
3. Add tea into the sugar mixture and use a whisk until well combined. Add the tea leaves from the tea bag and mix well. Use a whisk or spatula to whip by hand for about 6-7 minutes continuously until icing is stiff and able to hold a stiff peak. If that is too much muscle work for you, you may use the electric mixer and medium low speed for a few minutes.
4. Transfer royal icing into piping bag fitted with a star tip.
5. Pipe some icing onto the baking sheet as well for testing of doneness of the icing. Dry the iced biscuits in the oven at 60°C using the fan mode for an hour or until the royal icing is able to be lifted off the baking sheet easily and it's totally dry. Taste test a biscuit too to check that it's crisp. If it has turned a little soft due to the icing, dry the gems longer and taste test again.
6. Cool the dried biscuits completely before storing in airtight container.
