Black Pink Oreo Chiffon Cake

            

Black pink oreo chiffon cake recipe!

Video tutorial here.  
I was surprised that many of you were interested in this recipe, so here’s the tutorial. This is a very yummy cake! 

Black pink oreo chiffon cake (6” heart pan) 
2 egg yolks 
30g vegetable oil 
24g milk 
4g vanilla extract 
42g cake flour, sifted 
5 black pink oreos 

2 egg whites 
45g castor sugar 
Pinch of cream of tartar 

Crush 2 pink oreos (without filling) into fine crumbs. Mix egg yolks with oil, milk and vanilla extract.  Add in cake flour, pink oreo crumbs and a drop of pink food coloring (optional). 
Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar and castor sugar (added gradually) till firm peaks. Fold the egg yolk batter above into the whipped egg whites. 
Arrange the pink oreos (6 halves) at the base of the cake pan. Pour the cake batter over. Bake at 140C for 45+ min, till the centre of the cake is dry. Enjoy! 

With 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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Mermaid, Seashell & Starfish Cookies N Cream Macarons

This is a very girly set of sea themed macarons, complete with sweet girly colours and a pretty mermaids :).

Mermaids, seashells and starfish!

The starfish and seashell macarons can be found in my Creative Baking: Macarons book so you may refer to it if you need the templates and piping instructions. I was given a picture of the mermaid and made a template out of it.

I used the reduced sugar recipe for the macaron shells here. 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 mermaids

Freshly baked shells. I baked this batch together with the pirate themed batch

Just to share some photos of the decorated shells. I decorated the shells with royal icing and edible marker. The rosy cheeks on the mermaids were added on using peach coloured lustre dust and a small soft brush.

I had a hard time trying to source for candy/chocolate balls that are just the right size for the pearls in the shells so I made my own instead. I followed the recipe for modelling white chocolate from here, using a ratio of 2:1 for white chocolate : light corn syrup.

Homemade modelling white chocolate

Let the balls of "pearls" dry and harden in the open a little before adding on a coat of pearlescent lustre dust.

Brushing on pearlescent lustre dust

I filled the shells with cookies n cream swiss meringue buttercream. The recipe can be found here.

Thank God these were very well received at the party both looks and taste wise :).

With love,
Phay Shing

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Baby Jesus, Star and Sheep Macarons

"We were the reason that He gave His life
We were the reason that He suffered and died
To a world that was lost He gave all He could give
To show us the reason to live"

I get this earworm sometimes around Christmas :p. Christmas bakes seem incomplete for me if there's no element of what Christmas really means. Much as snowmen, reindeers and Christmas bears are cute, they are not the reason why we celebrate Christmas.

Christmas is all about God's love and salvation plan for us through the birth of Jesus :). Last year, I made baby Jesus, star and snowflake gingerbread cookies, followed by the nativity scene. Now that I have more practice making macarons, I decided to replicate the same designs but with macarons!

"Away in a manger no crib for a bed.
The little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head.
The stars in sky looked down where He lay.
The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay"

That's the scene I was trying to depict :). Making the whole nativity cast into macarons would be too ambitious and time consuming for me :p.

The basic macaron shell recipe can be found here. You may refer to the video tutorials I made earlier on how to fold the batter, test the consistency and pipe complex shapes.

Just some points to note,

- Divide the mass into ratio of 4:2:1:1 for white: yellow:grey:beige.
- Use the ratio of 0.55 for weight of Italian meringue:weight of mass.
- Use a pinch of charcoal powder to colour the batter grey, use a tiny toothpick dip of orange gel food colouring to colour the batter beige.
-Remember to bang the tray on the table after each step of piping.
-Bake at 135°C for 10 minutes with oven rack at lowest position, rotate the tray and bake at 130°C for 7 minutes. Check if the macarons are done by looking at the feet. If they appear a little wet, bake for another 5 minutes at 120°C and check again.
- Remove shells from baking sheet only when completely cooled. Well baked shells should not be stuck to the baking sheet when you gently peel the sheet away from the shells.

Here are some photos of the process...

Piping star! Wait for 15 minutes or until a sticky membrane forms before piping on pop up features.

Piping baby Jesus! Use a Wilton #5 tip (~3mm) to pipe the pop-up swaddle features and Wilton #3 tip (~2mm) to pipe eye lids and nose of baby Jesus.

Piping sheep! Pipe the cloud shaped body and let it dry for 15 minutes. Pipe the head and one leg. Wait for 10 minutes before piping the other leg and tuft of wool on the sheep's head.

Baked and decorated with edible marker and royal icing!

The shells were filled with cookies n cream swiss meringue buttercream or dark chocolate ganache.

Refrigerate for at least 24h before serving. Let the macarons warm up a little at room temperature for a few minutes before serving.

Thank God these were very well received at the party!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Baymax Oreo Cookies Chiffon Cupcakes

I have a request for Baymax chiffon cupcakes for Susanne's friend. She sent a photo of an example of what she would like. Since the design requested was a simple one, I focused on making the cupcakes an awesome one :). Not that I don't give my best for every bake, but I took the liberty of choosing a more interesting cake flavour (not the usual ones you find on our blog) and took pains to make the cakes yummy.

Here are my really soft and fluffy oreo cookies chiffon cupcakes topped with Baymax's face!

A closer look at the awesome texture of the oreo cupcake...

A closer look at the fondant replacement for cupcake decorations using chiffon layer cakes...

Reduced-egg yolk recipe was used for the white layer and charcoal was used to colour the black layer cake. Both layers are vanilla flavoured.

Some of the good stuff that went into the cakes include Hokkaido milk...

...and a good brand of vanilla bean paste for better flavour.

Recipe for oreo cookies chiffon cake is adapted from Mandy's baking journey. I used high quality ingredients to make sure that it's really yummy, used a lower flour:liquid ratio and steam baking to make the cake softer and more moist.

Ingredients (makes about thirty-two 44x35mm cupcakes:
6 egg yolks
30g caster sugar
84g canola/vegetable oil
84g milk (I used Hokkaido milk)
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
120g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinches of salt
5 oreo cookies coarsely crushed, discard filling (went into my kids' tummies :p as reward for helping me to crush cookies. You may add one more cookie if you like.)

8 egg whites*
80g caster sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

* I divided the meringue ingredients into two as I baked the cupcakes in two rounds.

Steps:
1. Prepare a baking tray of water at the base of the oven (Optional. Baking time will be shorter by about 5 minutes without steam). Set oven rack to second lowest position. Preheat oven to 140°C. I used an oven thermometer. The dial setting was at 180°C but actual temperature reads 140°C due to the steam.

2. Prepare the egg yolk batter. Beat egg yolks and sugar until pale and thick. Gradually add oil and whisk until well combined. Gradually add in milk and vanilla bean paste/extract and mix well. Gradually whisk in sifted flour, salt and baking powder until no trace of flour is seen. Add crushed oreos and fold in using the whisk.

2. Prepare meringue. Beat egg whites in a clean metal bowl until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until stiff peaks form, gradually adding sugar while beating.

3. Fold the meringue into the egg yolk batter in 3 additions quickly but gently.

4. Fill the cupcake cases until almost full. Tap the tray of cupcakes on the table.

5. Bake 140°C for 25-28 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Freshly baked and cooled.

All packed! I made 29 of these.

I made some extra cupcakes for my kids to enjoy and share with friends and grandma :). They all loved it! Even my elder kid who is not a fan of cakes was happy to have more than one helping :).

With love,
Phay Shing

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Lightning McQueen and Car Tyre Macarons

Here are the Lightning McQueen and car tyre macarons that joined the traffic light and checkered racing flag shortbread cookiepops and Lightning McQueen brown sugar cookiepops at a party!

The car tyres are made with chocolate shells and filled with cookies n cream swiss meringue buttercream. The McQueens are strawberry flavoured shells with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream. You may refer to the recipe from my Mickey and Minnie macaron post for the recipe for the car tyres, and my Mickey Mouse gloves and pants macaron post for the recipe for McQueen. I froze the McQueen shells which I made at the same time as the Mickey pants to help to save time. Just place baking sheets between layers of shells and store in airtight container in the freezer. Bring the shells to room temperature before opening the container. Don't worry, the quality of the shells are not compromised by freezing :). Macarons freeze very well.

Just to share some pictures of the process...

Piping out McQueen shells. Use a Wilton #12 round tip for this

Freshly baked McQueen shells!

The car tyres are just plain round macarons but with the tyre features added on with royal icing. I used two circle cookie cutters to print on concentric circles with royal icing as guides for me while I iced by piping using a Wilton #2 tip.

Freshly iced car tyres! Mostly done by freehand!

Icing McQueen was more challenging as there are a lot more details to add. I did all of it by freehand, using the shape of the macaron shell as a guide for each feature. Most of it was painted on with a toothpick. Thankfully I only made 6 of these! You may use a plastic template to trace out the features like I always do for cookies with complex designs. But you have to be very careful not to let the marker ink smudge as the macaron shell is not going to be fully flooded by icing to cover up the smudges.

Freshly iced McQueen!

Filling up with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream

Filling up with cookies n cream filling

Refrigerate in airtight container for at least 24h before serving.

With love,
Phay Shing

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Rilakkuma and Miffy Macarons

I had a request for Miffy macarons from my friend the same week as the assorted Peppa pig and friends macarons. So I made them together in one single session! Here's Miffy along with Rilakkuma!

Retro look :p

Pardon my poor photography skills. I took many photos of the various macarons (Peppa pig and friends, Garfield, My Melody and this set) in a hurry and this set didn't turn out too well.

Recipe for Miffy macarons is the same as my panda macarons. Recipe for Rilakkuma is the same as my Mickey and Minnie macarons except that I omitted the charcoal powder.

It was surprisingly tough to get Miffy's ears piped well! Or maybe I was just harried with too many different macs to pipe in one session :p

Running out of batter to play with so piped smaller heads :p

Freshly baked and paired shells!

Freshly iced along with Garfield and My Melody. This is only half the batch I made! There were still another 21 Peppa Pig and friends macarons!

Filling up half of Miffy with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream and half with lemon curd and lemon smbc.

Filling up Rilakkuma with cookies n cream smbc.

Glad that the Miffy macarons were well received! My kids got to eat the Rilakkumas and as usual they were happy to eat any leftover macarons!

You may think that I am very good at piping weird shaped macarons. Actually I am still learning and still making mistakes! But with every practice, I learn something new :).

Keep a lookout for my next attempt at Rilakkuma macarons! Made with a different flavour but naturally coloured too ;)

With love,
Phay Shing

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Peppa Pig & Friends Assorted Macarons

This is the set of Peppa Pig and friends assorted macarons that started my macaron mania!

Pedro Pony, Suzy Sheep, Candy Cat and Peppa Pig!

A peek at the side view!

I must admit that I was quite harried making so many different flavours and designs in one session as it's my first time doing so. I have always worked with one single batter and perhaps with another small portion of different coloured batter which can be safely overfolded. These 4 designs are not the only ones I made. I also made Garfield, My Melody, Miffy and Rilakkuma so you can imagine I was in a muddle after a while!

I made the following flavours for the various characters, with special notes for adaptation of recipe:

Peppa: Strawberry shell with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream (smbc). Check out My Melody macarons for the recipe. I used less pink gel food colouring for a lighter shade and more for the darker shade for the cheeks. I prepared the light and dark pink batters separately as I was making My Melody as well. You may just prepare a light pink batter, then portion out 2 tbs of batter to colour it dark pink for the cheeks. You may overfold this part.

Suzy: Plain shell with lemon smbc and lemon curd filling. Please refer to my panda macarons for the recipe. Some light pink batter from Peppa was used for the cheeks.

Candy: Caramel shell with Earl Grey salted caramel smbc and Earl Grey salted caramel filling. Recipe is the same as Garfield macarons. Portion out 2 tbs of batter and colour it dark orange for the cheeks.

Pedro: Chocolate shell with cookies n cream smbc. Recipe is adapted from Mickey and Minnie macarons. Omit the charcoal powder. Portion out 2 tbs of batter and add white gel food colouring to lighten up the shade of brown for the spots. If you don't have white colouring, you may add on the spots with royal icing after baking.

It takes quite a bit of careful planning to portion out the various batters and laying out the templates. I took care to print out a mirror image of the character for the bottom shells instead of the circles. I maxed out all my baking trays for this project. A 5-6 mm piping tip was used to pipe big features and a 3mm tip was used to pipe smaller features like cheeks, spots and ears. A toothpick was used to pull the batter where necessary (like Candy's ears and spots on Pedro).

Just to share some pictures of works-in-progress...

The masses with different flavours

Portioning out the Italian meringue by weight

Macaronage! Often the trickiest part of macaron making

Piping out Suzy

Freshly baked and paired (top and bottom shell)

Features freshly iced with royal icing!

Filling up the macs!

All packed!

It took me a day to bake the shells, a day to ice the shells (including those made with extra batter not shown in this post) and half a day to fill and pack the macarons. I made all the fillings ahead of time which I kept in the freezer. Lots of work but it is satisfying to see the results of my labour :).

Thank God that these macs were well received in taste and looks!

With love,
Phay Shing

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