"Puppies with Hearts" Marshmallows on Fresh Cream Cake

 The brief I had for this request was "Fresh cream cake with ombre pink/red hearts cascading down the cake and some cute puppies or bears". This was what I came up with!

Inside the cake is 5 layers of vanilla chiffon sponge with a hint of pandan in the batter as well as from the syrup brushed on the sponge surfaces.

It was honestly quite nerve-wracking putting this cake together because I seldom frost cakes completely and fresh cream only allows a limited number of passes with the scraper or spatula before it turns grainy. And Singapore is really warm so I had to work in the air-conditioned room.

I used my default vanilla chiffon sponge recipe and replaced a quarter of the milk with pandan water. I used pandan water instead of just water for the syrup for brushing the sponge. The ratio I used for the syrup is 1:2 for sugar : pandan water. I made the pandan water by simmering several pandan leaves in a saucepan of water (about 400ml) for 10 min before discarding the leaves.

I used the stabilized whipped cream recipe from this bake.

A closer look at the puppies with hearts!

Works-in-progress photo of the Hojicha marshmallow puppies before I stuck the marshmallow hearts and bows on

Please see this reel for the process of making the marshmallow cake toppers:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUnUti6CZN8/?igsh=d2M0YzF1NzVvMDRk

with love,

Phay Shing

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Nick and Judy Brown Sugar Cookies

 My friend loves my brown sugar cookies so much that she's ordering it again for her daughter's birthday! This is the twelfth consecutive year I am baking for the young lady! I didn't get around to sharing these earlier but the cookies were made along with the macaron versions of Nick and Judy.

Can you spot which ones are the cookies and which ones are the macarons below?

I use my default brown sugar cookie recipe because although it's not the prettiest cookies, it smells and tastes amazing! It has a long shelf life and stays yummy even when working for long hours with royal icing decoration as it is yummy both crisp or soft. I use cake paint to add in some shading or details on the icing.

With this many details, I can only ice this quantity 🤭. The weird cookie at the top right is for testing the shade of paint on the icing before I apply on the actual characters 

You may see this post for the details of the macaron version. Thank God it was well received once again!

with love,

Phay Shing

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"Happy Guinea Pig Village" Macarons

 I have a set of really cute guinea pig magnets that I have been wanting to create a bake with for some time. I finally had the bandwidth to play around with it and this was what I made!

Guinea pig macarons filled with smooth Biscoff spread and Nutella dark chocolate, along with a couple of 3D coffee macaron basket weave tunnels!

This project took place during a particularly rainy and humid spell so it was a little challenging to manage although making sure that the meringue was really stiff enough helped the batter to stay stable for a longer time.

I share the process of making the 3D tunnels along with some tips over here:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVhaegjkrXw/?igsh=Z21sN3UwcXRkbm05

Some photos of the process of making the 3D basket weave tunnel...

Freshly piped before transferring to the homemade foil arch

Transferred piped batter onto foil arch 

Baked coffee macaron tunnels!

I shared the process of making the guinea pig macarons along with some technical tips of working in humid conditions over here:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVpI4G-kj3p/?igsh=ZTZtMTQ1ZjEwNGJw

Some photos of the process of making the guinea pig macarons...

Freshly baked macaron shells along with the original magnet references

Check out the awesome feet on the shells!

I added in the details with gel food coloring and edible black marker.

It's the first time I am testing out using gel food colouring instead of cake paint after a long time because it didn't work for me in the long past but since it works for some macaron bakers, I thought of giving it a shot again. It takes a much longer time to dry than cake paint but it still works.

Filling with Biscoff spread and Nutella dark chocolate

I used my default Swiss meringue method recipe for both guinea pigs and tunnels but for the tunnel, I used the variation of the recipe where all the egg whites are used for making the Swiss meringue and folded until dry ingredients are just combined with the meringue.

with love,

Phay Shing

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