Green Hatchling Salted Caramel Choux Pastry

My younger kid has taken a liking to one of the plushies at home. It's the green hatchling from Angry Birds. He has it around when he reads in bed, and brings it to the study table when he studied for exams. The hatchling is named Grip by my kids so let's call him that. Grip has become a family member and friend of sorts so that's why I decided to make Grip salted caramel choux pastries for my kid's birthday! 

Grip with various expressions! I made it so as part of my first attempt at stop motion video. 

A view of the cross section! 

Have a look at the stop motion video over here! 

I used my default recipe for choux au craquelin but didn't bake from frozen batter. I will share the ingredient list here since some of you may be interested in the colouring I used. But please refer to the method in the reference post. 

Craquelin ingredients:

21g unsalted butter

18g sugar

21g cake or plain flour

2 drops lime green/mint green gel colouring 

2 drops electric yellow gel colouring 

1/2 tsp white powder colouring 

Extra notes for craquelin: 

You may scale up the recipe. I was making a small batch

Choux batter ingredients:

110g water

40g bread flour

20g plain flour

20g olive oil

20g unsalted butter

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar 

2 eggs

1 tsp white powder colouring 

A pinch of yellow powder colouring 

2 drops lime or mint green gel colouring 

4 drops yellow gel colouring (extra if necessary for the beak and feet batter) 

Extra notes for choux batter:

I divided the cooked dough in ratio of 1:4 for yellow: green, added the extra gel colours before adding the egg to the respective coloured batters. 

For Grip's hair, I used celery fibers that are blanched for 1 min and dehydrated in oven for an hour at 90-100C. 

Blanched and dehydrated celery fibers. 

So glad the "hair" and choux bun are so close in shade😍😍😍

I didn't take photos of the small parts like beaks, feet, tail and wings. They were all made of choux as well. The eyes were made from royal icing transfers. 

I drew the eyes on paper and used it as template for piping the eyes. 

The filling is salted caramel and salted caramel diplomat cream with mini crunchy chocolate balls. 

You may refer to this post for the salted caramel recipe. I thinned it with a little milk so it is more oozy. You may add crushed biscoff biscuits instead of crunchy chocolate balls. I just didn't want to buy an extra packet of biscuit for this😂. 

Salted caramel diplomat cream

Ingredients:

2 egg yolks

20g brown sugar

20g cornflour 

200g milk 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

1/4 tsp caramel flavouring (optional) 

15g unsalted butter 

20-30g salted caramel

65g whipping cream of choice (dairy, non-dairy or a combination) 

30g crunchy chocolate balls/crushed biscoff biscuits (adjust amount according to taste, omit if you prefer) 

Steps:

1. Heat milk, vanilla and caramel flavouring (if using) in a small saucepan until steaming hot (not boiling). In the mean time, whisk together egg yolks, brown sugar, cornflour and salt in a heavy bowl or glass measuring jug. 

2. Pour hot milk into egg yolk mixture in a thin stream while whisking the egg yolks continuously. Pour everything back into saucepan and heat over medium-low heat while whisking continuously. 

3. Once mixture thickens, remove from heat and continue whisking until mixture smoothens out. Place back on stove and whisk continuously while cooking to preferred consistency. 

4. Remove from heat and add butter and salted caramel and whisk until well combined. Press a cling film on surface of pastry cream and refrigerate until firm, at least 1h.

5. Whip up whipping cream of choice till firm or stiff peaks. Remove pastry cream from fridge and beat it briefly with spatula to loosen texture. Fold in whipped cream to make diplomat cream. 

6. Fold in crunchy chocolate balls or crushed biscoff biscuit crumbs. 

7. Transfer into piping bag. Fill pastries shortly before eating. Note that biscuit or crunchy cookie items do not stay crisp in the filling for long so if you want to enjoy the crunch within the filling, add in the crunchy bits only shortly before filling and serving. 

Grip is so cute I couldn't resist taking more pictures! 

Twinning! 

Pastry Grip with the real life Grip! 

As it is my kid's last year in primary school, I decided to make a graduation version as well! 

The hats are made of macarons and sour candy strips. You may refer to my Macaron Basics book for the regular sized macaron version. 

I hope this post puts a smile on your face as much as Grip (both real and pastry versions) did for my little one and all of us at home! 

With lots of love, 

Phay Shing

Hello Kitty Bento Chiffon Cakes

 

Which is your favorite among the 3? 💖💖 

Cute bento cakes for the kids!😀 

Have been wanting to make bento cakes for the longest time! 

Have a blessed weekend!🥰 

With love,

Susanne

'Corgi in Candyland' Strawberry and Vanilla Macarons

Something that is cuteness and sweetness overload... Corgi in Candyland macaron creation! 

This piece showcases various macaron techniques such as giant macarons, 3D macarons (cupcake cases), swirl macarons and character macarons! 

I used the Swiss meringue method and broke up the baking of macaron shells over 2 days due to the sheer number of colours involved. Just to share some pictures of the process... 

Piping cupcake cases on silicone cupcake cases. I ended up not using the purple one as it blends in with the pink base. 

I won't be sharing pictures of piped batter for the corgis, swirl macarons and giant macaron because I am sharing these! 

As-baked macaron shells from top view! 

The giant macaron is actually about 15cm im diameter. You may refer to my youtube video on how to pipe and bake such macarons well. 

Another view of the baked shells! 

The macarons are filled with 3 types of fillings: strawberry ganache (do note I named it strawberry white chocolate buttercream in the referenced blog post because although the ingredients are like ganache, the method of preparation is like a buttercream of sorts. I only decided to settle for categorising it as a ganache later on) , strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream and vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. 

The strawberry swiss meringue buttercream is made by adding a little strawberry emulco, some strawberry compote and freeze-dried strawberry powder to vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. 

I love how the giant macaron looks😍

Filling the cupcake cases with vanilla and swiss meringue buttercreams. I use wooden skewers as stabilisers for the lollipops as the lollipop sticks are long and it makes the lollipops top heavy. The skewers, combined with royal icing, makes the lollipops stable and not collapse or tip over when assembled. 

Filling lollipops with strawberry ganache and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream

Filling the corgis with strawberry ganache and swiss meringue buttercream 

And of course I finish off with a personal touch by adidng in the name, which is made of macaron too! 

With love, 

Phay Shing 

Squid Game Chiffon Cake (with Hidden surprise)

Who has watched Netflix's Squid Game? 

Here's my cake with a hidden surprise!  You will appreciate this if you watched the show. 

Here's the slicing video!

It's not the usual type of show I watch and I watched it out of curiosity from the hype. The show is really intense and very artistic with interesting themes. I liked it very much for its artistic direction and sets, and was kind of hooked, though I wouldn't encourage my kids to watch it as it is pretty graphic. I really liked the pretty pink BTS-coloured maze of stairs.

Hope you liked my cake!

I always have difficulty making things scary, so I had friends commenting this is the cute kids version lol. Hope you liked this creation too!

With lots of love,

Susanne

Knight and Graduating Dragon Macaron Carousel

I have made many designs and themes of character macarons since 2015 but I have never made knight, dragon and castle themed ones before. So I was really excited to make one, in carousel form too! 

This is graduation themed as well so someone has to wear the mortarboard. Of course it has to be the dragon! 

The castle macarons were made as a backdrop so they are not part of the carousel so I took photos of them as loose pieces. 

I used the Swiss meringue method for making the macarons. The bake was split into 2 separate days due to the many colours and rounds of baking involved. 

Just to share some photos of the process... 

Dragon piped macaron batter. I piped some plain rounds to bake for testing of colours for icing, edible marker and paint post-baking. 

Castle piped batter. Everyone says this looks like a dress if you turn it upside down😂. 

Knight piped batter. 

Piped batter for mortarboard pieces. I put my thumb there to show how tiny they are! 

Assembled mortarboard with royal icing and sour candy strip for the tassle. The regular sized version of this can be found in my Macaron Basics book. 

Some of the freshly baked pieces of the carousel frame. This is the first time I made a yellow frame! 

Undecorated as-baked macaron shells for the dragon, knight and castle. 

Decorated version of the dragon (minus the mortarboard), knight and castle. See what a big difference adding the details make! 

The macarons are filled with mango white chocolate buttercream and dark chocolate ganache. Crunchy chocolate balls are added for the large macaron base. 

I usually make my mango ganache with a combination of homemade mango compote and freeze-dried mango powder for a strong mango flavour. But as a carousel filling, I needed something really firm so no compote was used. My mango white chocolate buttercream is an adaptation from my usual mango ganache. 

Mango white chocolate buttercream (firm and tart filling!) 

Ingredients :

140g White chocolate (finely chopped or use chips) 

42g Unsalted butter 

A pinch of salt

28g Freeze-dried mango powder

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

Note: feel free to adjust the amount of mango powder and white chocolate according to taste and climate. 

Steps:

1. Place everything in a microwave-safe bowl. Melt the butter and chocolate in bursts of 10 seconds on medium-low power. Mix well between heating cycles. 

2. Set aside to let it firm up in aircon room for half an hour or in the fridge for a few minutes until toothpaste consistemcy. Whip it up to lighten the texture. Transfer into piping bag for use. 

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the base as I think it is beautiful too! 

The filling was rather soft when I was assembling so I decided to share my method of assembling such that there is less risk of a carousel collapse. It's Lego to the rescue! You may use other things like retort stand or anything with adjustable height too but Lego is just so handy for me. I shared this little tutorial on how to use Lego as temporary supports during carousel assembly on Instagram. 

The wooden skewers help to take some of the weight of the heavy roof. 

To remove the skewers and Lego supports, carefully slide the paper towels under the supports away first. This will create some give between the roof and skewers so that it is easier to remove the skewers. 

You may wish to assemble 3 (instead of 2 as shown here) of the 5 poles while the supports are still there if you want to be really sure there is no chance for collapse. Once the royal icing on the poles are set firm, the structure is very stable. 

Assembling this was a breeze with the temporary supports! 

With love, 

Phay Shing 

Noah's Ark Choux Pastry-Cookie Construction Masterclass

Noah's Ark themed birthday bakes are a popular and evergreen theme worldwide. Instead of creating the ark and animal details in fondant, why not learn to make them in yummier mediums like choux pastry and cookies! 

The ark is made of brown sugar cookie that is not too sweet, and filled with dark chocolate ganache between layers. 

The animals are made of choux au craquelin and filled with mixed berry diplomat cream. Yes, even the tiny birds are made of choux! 

This class is open for registration and you may click on this link for more details on what is covered over the 2-day masterclass in early December. You may opt for either hands-on or online version of the class. Hands-on participants have the added perk of having unlimited access to the online class videos at no extra cost. I cover in detail the basic techniques as well as the decorative techniques. You don't need to have experience in making either cookie construction projects or choux pastry, but some baking experience is helpful as much content will be covered over the 2 days. Do note that the online class is half the price of the hands-on class. 

I can assure you it will be fun! 

With love, 

Phay Shing

Cheese Pizza Chiffon Cake

 

Cute, Cheese “pizza” with Surprise cheesy filling anyone?🍕😛

Everything is naturally colored with @suncorefoods supercolor powders!

Sending lots of love and cheerful vibes with my happy pizza cake!❤🥰

Cheese chiffon cake
2 egg yolks
10g superfine sugar
30g vegetable oil
30g milk
40g cake flour, sifted
30g parmesan cheese powder
Pinch of baking powder
Pinch of salt

2 egg whites
36g superfine sugar

Pizza base:
Suncore yellow safflower, vermillion annatto for the color

Whisk egg yolks with sugar, followed by oil and milk. Add in dry ingredients and whisk till well combined. Divide the batter 2 (yellow): 1 (dark orange): 1 (light orange). Add in supercolor powders and mix till desired colors.

In another bowl, whisk egg whites with sugar till firm peaks. Divide the meringue 2: 1: 1. Fold in the meringue to the above batter till well incorporated. Bake the yellow batter in a 6-inch cake pan at 140C for 25 mins, and the orange batters as sheet cakes for 18 mins.

Pizza “fillings”
Suncore red radish powder, yellow safflower and blue spirulina for the color

Same as above, except divide the batter 2 (red): 1 (green): 1 (plain). Bake as sheet cakes for 18 mins. *I used 1 tsp yellow safflower and 1/8 tsp blue spirulina for the green color.

Assembly

Slice the yellow cake into 2 slices and add shredded pizza cheese in the middle.
Cut out orange cake strips and wrap around the yellow cake for the border.

Cut out various shapes for fillings. Assembly video above or here💕:

Add on the toppings and decorate with melted chocolate.
Microwave before serving for extra ooze effect! 😋

With lots of love,

Susanne

Jinbesan Yuzu and Dark Chocolate Macarons

My friend requested for some Jinbesan macarons. I couldn't resist making a couple of them listen to the sound of the sea during phototaking! 

I used the Swiss meringue method to make the macaron shells. Here are a couple of pictures of the piped batter. 

I used edible black marker and royal icing to include the details. 

The water spout is made from royal icing transfers. 

Here's a peek at the feet on the macaron shells! 

I filled the macarons with a combination of yuzu ganache and dark chocolate ganache. 

I hope these smiley whales put a smile on your face like theirs! 

With love, 

Phay Shing