Osmanthus Honey Wolfberry Flower Box Cakes

 I wanted something elegant, floral and healthy for mothers when I was planning the class material for Mother's day. This was what I came up with!

Osmanthus honey wolfberry flower box cakes with the floral patterns painted using natural ingredients!

Composition:

- Honey milk vanilla chiffon sponges

- Osmanthus honey agar jelly with and without wolfberries

- Osmanthus honey custard cream 

The cake can be enjoyed either chilled as a cream cake, or frozen as an ice-cream cake. The latter is really refreshing and more-ish!

Here's a peek at the cake cross section!

Please click on this link for the studio class:

https://www.bakersgym.com/service-page/mother-s-day-special-flower-box-cake

Please click on this link for the online class:

https://www.bakersgym.com/product-page/mother-s-day-special-flower-box-class-ready-by-2nd-may-sgd-88-usd-68

Here's a peek at the process of making the cake!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVR9r9SiZDP/?igsh=ZWNxOHRrY2owN2ti

with love, 

Phay Shing

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Mid-Autumn Macaron Special (Mooncarons & Teacup Bunnies)

These macarons are actually class material with Artz Baking and Culinary Studio but I couldn't resist taking photos of them, and making the bunnies hold teeny mooncakes for the occassion! 

Mooncarons and bunny in teacup oolong osmanthus macarons! All ready to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival! 

I made mooncarons or macarons that look and taste like mooncakes since 2017 but this is the first time I am teaching a hands-on class for it. I tweaked the recipe a little for the class but technique is essentially what I shared in the previous years in the blog. 

Close up view of the cross-section of a mooncaron! Filing is mung bean paste and salted egg yolk! 

The bunny in teacup macaron class has been running for a number of rounds since last year and this will he the last one for the forseeable future so I took the chance to make it more memorable by including the teeny royal icing transfer mooncakes. My elder kid originally designed the bunny template and it was intended for Mid-Autumn festival at its debut, that's why the flavour is oolong osmanthus. The yellow macaron shells are passionfruit osmanthus flavoured, fruity and floral, so good you can even eat it on its own! 

I hope these bakes put a smile on your face as it did on mine 😊. 

With love,

Phay Shing

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'Bunny in Teacup' Oolong Osmanthus Macaron Class

I was wondering what to make that is somewhat Mid-Autumn themed for my next teacup macaron class and this was what I came up with!

Cute bunnies in teacup filled with a tea flavour that goes well with mooncakes! 

I taught Chinese New Year themed and Bear themed teacup macaron classes previously so this is my third design for class material. My elder kid helped with the design of the bunny template, which was really helpful for me.

You will learn the basics of swiss meringue method macarons, how to pipe the batter for the various parts and assemble it. I will also teach you how to make the fragrant oolong osmanthus filling.

Please click on this link for more details and to register for the class in early August, and click on this link to register for the class in October. A silicone hemispherical mould for making the teacup will be provided and you will get to bring it home.


With love,
Phay Shing

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CNY Piggy Macarons (Reduced-Sugar Swiss Method)

After giving the awesome Swiss method recipe that my friend Audrey shared a few tries, I am rather comfortable with it. I decided it's time to be a little adventurous and apply the same reduced-sugar method that I applied to both Italian and French methods to this Swiss method. Although I made many other macarons with this recipe, I thought of just presenting something festive, in time for Chinese New Year!

Only the piggies were made using the reduced-sugar method. The boy and girl macarons were made using regular Swiss method recipe, because I made them in preparation for my macaron class. The boy and girl macaron design can be found in my Creative Baking: Macaron Basics book.

I had some spare capacity to make a couple of macarons along with a cat macaron carousel, and so I decided to make the piggies.

Piped macaron batter. I didn't make enough peach coloured batter that's why the bottom shell looks like that 😅.

I decorated the macaron shells with edible marker, royal icing, peach coloured lustre dust and store-bought sugar flower.

I filled the macarons with whipped osmanthus white chocolate ganache

Take a look at how full the shells are!

I am really pleased that the reduced-sugar version works as well! As mentioned in my post for reduced-sugar Italian method, replacing icing sugar with rice flour makes the almond paste wetter as rice flour doesn't absorb as much moisture as icing sugar. So there is a need to reduce the amount of egg whites a little. I reduced the icing sugar and caster sugar portion by 10%. Feel free to double the recipe, use three-quarters of the recipe, or even combine the egg whites into one portion, used for making the Swiss meringue only. As mentioned in my original Swiss method post, some people find it easier to work with all the egg whites in the meringue and then folding in sifted dry ingredients into the meringue.

Reduced-sugar Swiss method
Ingredients (makes about 35-40 macarons):
Almond paste
100g superfine almond flour
90g icing sugar
8g rice flour
2g (1 tsp) cornflour
35g egg white

Swiss meringue
50g egg white
90g caster sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar (optional)
1/4 tsp salt (optional)

Steps:
Please refer to this post for the detailed steps. The only difference is if you are working with multiple colours in a single batch, the weight of meringue should be half the weight of almond paste for each colour of batter.

With love,
Phay Shing

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Winnie and Friends Osmanthus and Lavender Earl Grey Macarons

I made these Winnie the Pooh and friends macarons for a friend's birthday. Her daughter who is also a friend of mine, requested for some tea flavours so I chose Osmanthus and Lavender Earl Grey :)

Those who know me will know that I don't like to repeat designs. Even if they are of the same characters. I have made the Tsum Tsum and Ufufy versions of Winnie and Friends macarons so I decided to do a "plush toy" version this time round.

I actually baked this set concurrently with two other separate requests. The bake was so massive and intricate that I decided to spread it over two days to make it more manageable because I have other commitments as well.  I used the French method for the smaller batch and Italian method for the larger batch. You may use your favourite macaron recipe or any recipe in our blog. You may refer to my macaron books Creative Baking: Macarons and Creative Baking: Macaron Basics for a more systematic review of the basics and piping techniques, as well as the macaron shell recipes I used here.

What I really want to share in this blog post is the awesome, mellow and not so sweet filling that is full of tea flavour. I tweaked my standard whipped white chocolate ganache filling base to make a firm enough for Singapore's tropical climate but less sweet ganache. Here are a couple of pictures of the macaron shells...

Freshly baked! The amount of details makes the whole bake tedious! The mushrooms and squirrels are for another request so stay tuned!

I drew the facial features with black edible marker. Check out the feet on the shells!

Tea flavoured macaron filling
Honestly, I am not sure whether to call this a ganache or buttercream, or put "cream cheese" in the name somewhere because the filling contains all of these but not in huge proportions. Heavy cream (or whipping cream) makes up about one-eighth of the total weight as it is the liquid that will cause the whole filling to be really soft. I added some vegetable shortening and cream cheese as it is firmer at room temperature than butter. The amount is also about one-eighth each to add stability but not alter the taste too much.  White chocolate is the ingredient that will make the filling most firm but it is also really sweet. So over here white chocolate is only about three-eighths the total weight.

I also make sure that the tea flavours are strong enough by both infusing the dried flowers in melted butter, shortening and cream, and adding tea powder to the mixture.

Feel free to upsize the recipe. This works well for both small and large quantities.

Ingredients (fills about 12-18 macarons):
Tea Infusion mixture
15g whipping cream/ heavy cream
15g vegetable shortening
30g unsalted butter
1tbs dried lavender flowers or 2tbs dried osmanthus flowers

Tea flavoured cream
30g white chocolate (chips or finely chopped)
40g tea infusion mixture
1/2-3/4 tsp Earl Grey powder or ground osmanthus flowers
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
12g cream cheese, at room temperature

Steps:
1. Make the tea infusion mixture for your choice of tea flavour. Place dried flowers in a small bowl. Set aside. Heat whipping cream, shortening and butter over medium-low heat in a small saucepan until it starts to bubble, stirring the mixture to ensure even melting of the butter and shortening. Pour hot mixture into bowl of dried flowers. Let it steep for 15 minutes. Strain out 40g of the mixture, squeezing as much of the liquid out from the flowers as possible.

2. Add salt and sifted tea powder (and vanilla extract if using) to the tea infusion mixture and mix well. Add white chocolate to the mixture. Microwave over medium power for 10 seconds and mix well. Repeat heating and stirring until white chocolate is melted. Alternatively, you may double-boil the mixture. Be careful not to overheat.

3. Chill the white chocolate mixture in freezer for two minutes. Use a spatula to mix well. Repeat freezing and mixing until you are able to whip the mixture to buttercream texture.

Whipped Lavender Earl Grey and Osmanthus white chocolate cream cheese buttercream

4. Use a spatula to whip the cream cheese in a mixing bowl to loosen up the cream cheese. Gradually add the tea flavoured white chocolate buttercream mixture into the cream cheese. Mix well after each addition.

Transfer to piping bag and pipe onto the bottom shells.

Filling up Tigger and Pooh with Osmanthus white chocolate cream cheese buttercream

Filling up Piglet and Eeyore with Lavender Earl Grey white chocolate cream cheese buttercream.

Refrigerate for at least 24h before consuming. Let the macarons sit at room temperature for 10 min before eating.

With love,
Phay Shing

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Rose, Osmanthus and Lavender Rosette Macarons

There's a certain charm about rosette macarons and I made these for an event :)

Rose, Osmanthus and Lavender rosette macarons!

I love floral teas so it's been quite like aromatherapy for me by creating these macarons. I made my own floral extracts, flower powder and infused the cream with the dried flowers before making the ganache.

You may refer to this post for the macaron shell recipe. I modified it a little by increasing the icing sugar and almond flour to 40g each. I didn't add any floral extracts or flower powder into the macaron shell so as to let it remain uniformly coloured and in a pastel shade. You may add some flower powder (ground and sifted dried flowers) if you don't mind the shells appearing speckled.

Just to share some photos of the process...

Piping pink rosettes

Cross section of a baked macaron shell

I made the floral extracts by storing the dried flowers with vodka in small glass bottles for a few days. Ideally you should prepare this two weeks before time but I didn't have the time to do it. I compensated it by packing each bottle full of flowers. Store the bottles in a cool and dark place. Give the bottles a little shake now and then.

Homemade floral extracts!

I brushed a little extract on the underside of the macaron shells and added some to the ganache.

I used a coffee grinder to grind the dried flowers and sifted them. I must admit that it wasn't easy to get the rose powder as compared to lavender and osmanthus. Anyway I used some rose water to enhance the rose flavour such that it is still strong despite less powder used.

Rose, Osmanthus and Lavender powder

I added the flower powder into the ganache. You may add to the macaron shells if you wish.

Recipe for whipped floral ganache (piped as roses)
Ingredients (enough to fill 15-18 rosette macarons):
132g white chocolate, chopped (or compound white chocolate chips if you are afraid of overheating white chocolate)
12g unsalted butter
12g vegetable shortening
3/8 tsp salt
36g heavy cream with dried flowers infused*
1 tsp osmanthus or lavender extract, or 1 tsp rose water + 1/4 tsp rose extract
1.5 tsp dried osmanthus powder, 1 tsp lavender powder or 1/4 tsp rose powder
A drop of gel food colouring

Note that I am making a stiff version of ganache as Singapore is rather warm. You may add more cream if you wish.

* Heat about double the amount of cream required until it starts to bubble. Pour into a bowl with 1 tbs of dried flowers (2 tbs for dried rosebuds). Let it steep for about 15 min at room temperature. Cover and let it continue steeping in the fridge for several hours or overnight. Strain the cream and weigh out the amount needed to make the ganache.

Other logistics
Flower nail
Baking paper cut into small squares for each piped ganache rose
Petal piping tip

Steps:
1. Place all ingredients in a microwave safe bowl and melt it at medium low power for 20 seconds. Mix well with spatula. Repeat until completely melted and smooth. Alternatively, you may use double boiling method to melt the chocolate and all the ingredients together

2. Chill the bowl in freezer for 2 min. Stir with spatula and return to freezer for another 2 min. Repeat freezing and whipping the ganache until texture lightens up and is smooth and creamy.

I love the natural colour of osmanthus from the extract!

3. Add a small drop of gel food colouring and mix well. Transfer the whipped ganache into piping bag fitted with a small petal tip (I used Wilton #101). Dab a little ganache onto the flower nail and stick a small square of baking paper on it. Pipe a rose on it and transfer the paper with the rose onto a baking tray. You may Google for video tutorials on how to pipe the roses. Sorry I didn't do a video tutorial for this 😅. It is advisable to use a small round tip to pipe a cone before piping the petals using the petal tip but I didn't want to waste resources by using an additional piping bag and tip so I just used the petal tip to roughly pipe a cone in the middle.

Tray of piped roses. I don't pipe it perfectly because to be honest, this is the first time I am piping them!

4. Freeze the tray of piped roses until firm. The ganache in piping bag may soften until it becomes difficult to pipe due to hear from you hand. If that happens, empty the piping bag and chill the ganache again. Rewhip and fill the piping bag.

5. Pipe some ganache in the middle of the macaron shell. Quickly add on the flowers using tweezers or chopsticks. Top up the middle with more ganache of necessary. Gently place the top shell on. Press it down a little after the ganache roses have soften a little. Return the tray of piped roses into the freezer if they get too soft to handle. For this reason, I piped each coloured rose on a few small trays such that at any time, one or two trays are chilling in the freezer.

Adding the ganache roses

I love this pretty sight!

You may leave the assembled macarons as they are or add on leaves like I did. I prepared vanilla white chocolate ganache that is coloured green for the leaves and used a small leaf tip to pipe the leaves between the roses.

Rose macarons

Lavender macarons

Osmanthus macarons

I must admit that making the filling took longer and was much more tedious than making the macaron shells for once! Thankfully at the end of it all I was rewarded with a pretty sight :)

With love,
Phay Shing

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Osmanthus Wolfberry Water Chestnut Cake Roses (桂花枸杞子马蹄糕)

Lots of yummy but heaty food are available during the Chinese New Year period. Why not try this simple refreshing dessert that is healthy and cooling :). Presenting my auspicious looking gold-and-red osmanthus wolfberry water chestnut cakes dressed up as roses!

Don't be deceived by our looks. We are very easy to make!

I made osmanthus water chestnut cake with whole wolfberries inside some time back. This is another lovely variation of the dessert. You may double or triple the recipe but it would involve using 2 or more steaming plates for each flavour of water chestnut cake. You may adjust the amount and type of sugar (white, brown or rock sugar) according to your preference too. My version is mildly sweet.

Osmanthus water chestnut cake
Ingredients:
A)
25g water chestnut powder/flour (Available at large TCM shops and some supermarkets in the agar powder section.)
60g (1/4 cup) cool water
B)
120g (1/2 cup) osmanthus tea (Boil water and steep 2 tbs of dried osmanthus flowers in 140ml of water for 5 minutes. Strain out the flowers.)
15g brown sugar
10g white sugar (Alternatively, you may replace all sugar with rock sugar)

Steps:
1. Mix well A) and sieve to remove/break up undissolved bits. Set aside.

2. Bring osmanthus tea to boil with sugars. Turn off heat once boiled and sugar is dissolved.

3. Stir A) again and slowly pour into B) while stirring B) continuously.

4. Pour into large heat-proof plate that is greased with a bit of cooking oil. Make sure the depth of the mixture is 5mm or less in the plate. The thinner it is, the more rose-like your end product will be but it may be trickier to handle.

5. Steam at medium high heat for 10 minutes. Cool completely at room temperature.

Wolfberry water chestnut cake
Ingredients:
A)
25g water chestnut powder/flour
60g cool water
B)
65g wolfberry puree/juice (Rinse and soak 2 tbs of dried wolfberries in about 100ml of hot water until soft. Blend and strain. You can choose not to strain if you prefer more bite.)
55g water or osmanthus tea
25g brown sugar
Tiny drop of liquid red food colouring (optional)

Steps:
Same as the above. Just place all ingredients in B) in a small saucepan to boil,  turn off heat before adding in A) gradually.

Here comes the fun part...Assembly!

1. Use a round cutter to cut out circles and cut each circle in half. Use a non-stick mat or baking sheet as your work surface.

2. Line the semi-circles up over-lapping each other. You may alternate the flavours of "petals" for a nice balance of osmanthus and wolfberry flavors.

3. Roll up and you have a pretty rose! As the cake is sticky and very bendy, the petals will naturally roll and stick well.

I have used this technique for creating steamed rose mantous, rose bread loaf and chiffon cake roses!

Chill the roses in the fridge before serving for a cool and refreshing dessert!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Water Chestnut Osmanthus Wolfberry Cake (马蹄桂花枸杞子糕)

*Cough* *cough* *sniffle* *sniffle*. Everyone in my family is taking turns to be heaty and come down with a bad cold. I thought it might be a good idea to make this cooling cake for everyone, including myself. Refreshing, soft and slightly chewy water chestnut cake with osmanthus flowers infused and wolfberries scattered in:

Osmanthus flowers are known to provide antioxidants, help to expel phlegm and relief cough. Wolfberries are rich in antioxidants and water chestnuts help to reduce heatiness. Sounds medicinal but it's really good to have this on really warm days as a cool and refreshing dessert too :). It's really simple to make this as only boiling, steaming, and stirring and pouring are involved but you may or may not find it easy to get hold of water chestnut powder/ flour, depending on where you live.

In Singapore, we can get this from large TCM shops like Yue Hwa. Some supermarkets may sell too, like Sheng Shiong near where I live. Look for it under the jelly/ agar agar section and not the flour section.

I added more water than recommended on the water chestnut flour packaging so the resulting cake is more like Nyonya kueh texture. Hubby said this texture is good and the kids loved this even though I think it's quite an adult-palate dessert. I used to make water chestnut cake with less water and some chopped water chestnuts in it. The kids did not like it as much as this. Hubby preferred plain osmanthus and wolfberry water chestnut cake as the osmanthus flavor is stronger whereas the kids liked both layered with coconut milk and the plain osmanthus. Like the kids, I like both for the throat-soothing refreshing taste :).

The recipe is adapted from Munch Ministry. Quantity is enough to fill 4 silicone heart mould (about 90-100ml each) and 2 mini loaf pans.

Ingredients:
Osmanthus and wolfberry water chestnut cake
A)
50g water chestnut powder/ flour
110g cool water
B)
260g water
10g brown sugar
40g white sugar (You may replace with rock sugar but I didn't have any at the moment.)
1 tbs dried osmanthus flowers
1.5 tbs dried wolfberries

Coconut milk water chestnut cake
A)
50g water chestnut powder/ flour
110g cool water
B)
150g water
90g coconut milk
50g white sugar

Steps:
1. Grease pans/bowls that you are pouring the water chestnut mixture im for steaming.  If you are using silicone moulds, you don't have to grease. Prepare wok/ steamer for steaming.
2. Prepare the osmanthus wolfberry water chestnut cake mixture. Rinse wolfberries and soak in 260g of cool water for 15 minutes. Scoop out the wolfberries and gently pat dry with paper towel. Reserve the water used for soaking the wolfberries.
3. Mix well ingredients in A) and sieve to remove any large undissolved bits of water chestnut flour. What you get is a suspension that will have to be stirred just before combining with B).
4. Boil water that was used to soak the wolfberries with brown and white sugar. When the water boils, throw in osmanthus flowers, cover the saucepan and turn off the heat. Let the flowers steep for 2 minutes. You may wish to strain away the flowers if you don't like chewing on it. If you choose to strain, bring the mixture to boil again before taking it off the heat.
5. Slowly pour in A) while stirring continuously. If you are making plain osmanthus wolfberry water chestnut cake, you may add in pre-soaked wolfberries to the water chestnut mixture before pouring into mould for steaming. Steam for 30 minutes if you are not making the coconut milk mixture. I scooped about 12 tbs into a mini loaf pan to steam. If you are making layered cake, place some wolfberries into the mould. I lined wolfberries such that they follow the heart shape of the mould. Cover the wolfberries with water chestnut mixture. Mine was about 2 tablespoons for each heart. Steam for 10 minutes on medium high heat.
6. In the meantime while the osmanthus water chestnut layer is being steamed, prepare the coconut milk water chestnut mixture. Mix together ingredients in A) and sieve to remove any undissolved lumps of watee chestnut powder.
7. In a small saucepan, boil water, coconut milk and sugar. Once it boils, remove from heat and slowly pour in A) while stirring continuously. You may pour this mixture into a mould to steam for 30 minutes (about 12 tbs worth) if you would like plain coconut milk water chestnut cake.
8. Carefully remove the lid of your steamer/wok to prevent water from dripping onto your cake. Spoon 2 tbs into each heart mould and steam for another 10 minutes.
9. Repeat layering the layered cake with another layer of osmanthus and wolfberries, and coconut milk water chestnut mixture.

** You may reduce amount of water in the mixture if you prefer a firmer cake, but take note that the cake will harden when chilled in the fridge. Steam for another 10 minutes if you find that the cake mixture still flows when you tilt the mould. The center may still be a bit wobbly when you are done with steaming. Don't worry, it will set when you refrigerate it.

10. Cool the cakes in the mould at room temperature before refrigerating them for an hour. Remove carefully from the mould. Run a toothpick around the edges to release the cakes.

The cakes are best eaten chilled but due to our coughs, I let them sit at room temperature for a while before serving.  Some people prefer the pan-fried version of water chestnut cakes but I personally prefer the more refreshing steamed-chilled version.

Yums!

Praying that all of us recover soon!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Osmanthus Macarons with Osmanthus Pastry Cream and Wolfberries

My successful attempt at making green tea macarons motivated me to try making macarons again, particularly tea flavored ones as the green tea macs were really yummy without being overly sweet. Just as matcha and azuki beans are a natural pair, osmanthus tea and wolfberries are often paired together too. I happen to have osmanthus tea leaves and dried wolfberries at home so I didn't wait to get started. Here's my round and flower-shaped osmanthus macarons with osmanthus pastry cream filling topped with succulent wolfberries! Had a busy day so I only did simple decoration on four macaron shells.

Most recipes you find from the internet for making tea flavored macarons involve grinding almond, icing sugar and dried tea leaves/flowers together. I don't have an appliance at home suitable for this step and I didn't want to risk the almond powder forming a paste during the grinding process so I resorted to a primitive but very effective method of making fine tea powder from osmanthus tea flowers!

I took 6g of osmanthus flowers, lay them out in a thin layer on a tray and toasted them at 100 degrees Celsius for half an hour. This is to dry the flowers completely. I poured the flowers into the mortar you see in the picture and pound away for a few minutes until I got tea powder. I sifted the powder with a fine sieve and put any dried flower bits that couldn't pass through the sieve back into the mortar and rework it for a couple of minutes until almost all the dried flower bits could pass through the fine sieve.

The recipe for making osmanthus macaron shells is exactly the same as that for matcha macarons except that you replace green tea powder with osmanthus tea powder. I added a teeny bit of yellow gel food coloring to the almond powder, icing sugar, egg white and tea powder mixture to bring some color to the final product. My mixture looks like this:

I was careful to turn up the speed of my stand mixer when pouring the syrup into the egg whites this time and it only took me 4.5 minutes to get a smooth and stiff meringue.

I am still trying to get the hang of gauging how much to fold during the macaronage stage and I think I may have overfolded a little this time as the feet of the macaron shells were smaller and some of the flower shaped ones had no feet! They still look great when piped onto the trays :P

I used a cookie cutter as the stencil to draw a template for piping the flower-shaped macarons. I used a similar piping technique as the one that I used for piping heart-shaped green tea macarons for these flower-shaped ones. I.e. Instead of filling the flower shapes on the template completely with batter, I "drew" the flowers by:
1. Position piping tip vertically over the center of a petal and squeeze the piping bag.
2. When the petal is almost filled (about 2mm away from the template border), drag the tip towards the center of the flower as you gradually release the pressure on your piping bag.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for all the other petals.

Filling the templates right up to the border will result in flower patterns that look like irregular shaped blobs.

Freshly baked macaron shells!

I decorated four macaron shells with some chopped wolfberries that have been soaked and patted dry with paper towels and two tiny osmanthus flowers for the round macs. I painted the tops of the shells with dilute royal icing sugar and stuck the decorations on. The royal icing sugar that I use is the just-add-water type.

Recipe for osmanthus pastry cream is adapted from here. I halved the recipe for my small portion of macarons and reduced the amount if sugar by a teaspoon or two. I also strained the pastry cream before transferring it into a bowl and covering it with cling wrap touching the surface of the pastry cream. It's my first time filling macarons with pastry cream and I love it for it's simplicity and the fact that it uses up the left over egg yolks from making the shells. After letting the pastry cream set for 4 hours, I filled the shells and topped the cream with dried wolfberries that have been soaked in osmanthus tea for 5-10 minutes and dried with paper towels. I didn't want to risk the juicy wolfberries thinning out the pastry cream so I didn't fold them in although that would have made the work easier.

We had some friends over at our house tonight and they enjoyed the macarons :). My younger kid loves it too although my elder one prefered the macs without the wolfberries (that kid thinks it's strange to put wolfberries in desserts). If you are a fan of osmanthus tea and wolfberry combination, this would be a wonderful sweet treat for you!

With love,
Phay Shing

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