Passionfruit honey Winnie the Pooh Marshmallows

 Part of book writing involves testing of recipes that I write in the book. I took the chance to make Winnie the Pooh passionfruit honey marshmallows to satisfy my curiosity to see if there is a difference between fresh and freeze-dried fruit options for marshmallows. I took the chance to satisfy my curiosity to see if there's a difference using tapioca starch instead of cornstarch as dusting too. Here's what I made!

Here's a peek at the piped marshmallow batter before I added in the small details!

You may see how I piped both designs in my Instagram reels:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cpgk4MTATsi/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

and

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpoQa0-gzLH/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I coloured the brown marshmallow parts with chocolate paste. The facial features and "Hunny" lettering where painted or piped on with melted dark chocolate. Yes the hunny pots are marshmallows too! 

The little bees on top of some of them were made out of yellow candy melts, a little bit of blue sprinkle and melted dark chocolate. 

See how squishy they are in this video!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpbdbWJgrqE/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

with love,

Phay Shing

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Eeyore Sugar-Free Ube Coconut Chiffon Dome Cakes

 I am almost done with draft 1 of Deco Marshmallows! But before I complete writing the last two recipes and create the respective templates for them, I decided to take a short break to satisfy my curiosity as well as test out the ube paste that I am going to use in one of the marshmallow entries. Having had success with the sugar-free chocolate Rilakkuma swiss roll, I am curious to know if it works for decorative chiffon cake characters as well. Here's the result of my experiment!

This is actually my second attempt. The first attempt was considered a fail for me although taste and texture wise was great. Why so?

I use Allulose and Alchemy fibre as my sugar replacements for sugar-free chiffon cakes. I explained my choice of sugar-replacements in my previous post and you can read about it. 

While this combination of sugar replacements produce chiffon cakes that have texture like the real deal, Allulose browns at a much lower temperature than sugar. If you are baking strong colours, earthy, brown or black colours, the browning of Allulose would not be as obvious. But browning will show up more obviously for pastels and tricky colours like blue and purple. This makes baking "naked chiffons" or character chiffons trickier if you don't want the cakes to appear brown at all.

Using coconut milk like I did for this bake doesn't help either as the cake tends to brown more easily than if water is used but I prefer not to compromise the taste for looks. I used steam baking and lower temperature to help to mitigate the browning.

Video of the process is on my Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqEyn-EgGdl/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Sugar free ube coconut Eeyore dome cakes (makes one 7x7" sheet cake + 4 domes baked in glass bowls*)

Egg yolk batter
2 egg yolks
5g Allulose
30g oil of choice 
30g coconut milk

1.5 tsp ube paste/extract**
45g cake flour

Pinches of salt

white gel coloring (as needed or optional)**

1 drop of purple gel coloring (optional)**

2-3 drops strawberry paste**

1 small toothpick dip of peach gel colouring**

Meringue
3 egg whites
22g Alchemy fibre
53g Allulose

1/4 tsp Cream of tartar/lemon juice

* I used glass bowls that are about 9cm in diameter at the top and 6.5cm in height. You may use any metal or silicone molds about the same size as well but do note that any markings using edible marker should match the colour of the batter or pipe by freehand.

** Use 2 tsp ube paste and omit all extra colouring and flavouring if you are making plain ube coconut cake without Eeyore design. Bake in 6" chiffon tin or in 10x12" tray for Swiss roll.

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 150C with tray of water at base of oven. Line 7x7" tray with Teflon sheet or parchment paper. Trace out the snout on outer side of glass bowls with edible marker.

2. Make the egg yolk batter. Whisk egg yolks, salt and Allulose until pale and thick. Add oil and whisk until combined. Add coconut milk and whisk until combined. Gradually sift in cake flour and whisk until no trace of flour is seen. Add a little white gel colouring if you wish to make the batter base less yellow. 

3. Portion out 2 tsp of batter and add strawberry paste to colour it pink. Portion 2 tsp of batter and colour it peach coloured. Add ube paste to the remaining batter. Add purple gel colouring if desired.

4. Make the meringue. Whisk together Allulose and Alchemy fibre in a small bowl. In a clean metal bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until firm (almost stiff) peaks, adding sugar-replacement mix gradually once egg whites are foamy.

5. Fold in 4 tbs of meringue into the each of the pink and peach batters. Fold in the rest of the meringue into purple ube batter. Fold in the meringue in two or three additions. Transfer purple and peach batter into piping bags with hole cut.

6. Pipe purple batter into glass bowls until it reaches the line marked by edible marker for the snout. Pipe the snout with peach batter. Fill up the whole glass bowl with more purple batter, leaving about 1cm unfilled. 

7. Pour the pink batter into the 7x7" tray and spread it to fill half (one side) of it. Fill the other half with purple batter.

8. Place all cakes into the oven. Reduce temperature to 140C. Bake for 10 minutes or until the sheet cake is baked through. Remove from oven and immediately flip it out onto a fresh sheet of parchment paper. Continue baking the dome cakes at 130C for another 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 110C and bake for another 10 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Please adjust baking temperature and time according to your oven. All temperatures mentioned in this post is as read by the oven thermometer.

9. Let the dome cakes cool completely before carefully unmolding by hand. Be gentle as chiffons are delicate! 

Extra details like the hair and eyes

10g butter

10g egg whites

10g cake flour

10g powdered erythritol (replace with icing sugar if you don't have. Although it won't be 100% sugar-free, this is negligible)

1g charcoal powder

1g cocoa powder (may replace with charcoal)

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 150C and line a small tray with teflon sheet or parchment paper.

2. Whisk everything together until smooth. Transfer into a small piping bag with a small hole cut.

3. Pipe a blob with spikes for Eeyore's hair. I did this by freehand. Pipe a patch of batter about 6x6cm in area for the eyes. Batter doesn't have to be too thick. About 2mm thick will do.

4. Bake for 7-8 min or until it appears dry. 

5. Cool completely before carefully removing the hair and use a Wilton #12 tip to cut out the eyes.

Assembly

1. Use a knife to press a line down the front of Eeyore's face.

2. Use a tear drop shape cookie cutter to cut out the ears from the sheet cake. I made one out of metal can. Press the pink and purple cutouts together for each ear.

3. Melt some sugar-free chocolate (I used 100% cocoa with no sugar added from Pascha) and colour it black with charcoal powder or oil based black colouring, or use black chocolate chips. Paint on the nostrils, stitches and eyebrows with melted chocolate.

4. Glue on the hair and eyes with melted chocolate. 

I had to stop work here as it was night time and had other household things to deal with but took the chance to take a photo of the works-in-progress look.

5. Glue on the ears with melted marshmallows or cake glue. Use short pieces of wooden skewer to help to secure it in place if necessary but warn your recipients! 

As with all sugar-free bakes made with sugar replacements, eat in moderation as some people have digestive systems that are sensitive to them.

with love,

Phay Shing

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Pooh Chiffon Cake

 

I made this Pooh cake quite sometime back! It's been sitting in my phone and I just remembered it as Mother's day was around the corner. Hope this sweet cake makes you smile! 

With love, 
Susanne 

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Bento Box Chiffon Cakes

 

Another version of Bento chiffon cake, this time peeking out of the box cover! 

Check out my other bento chiffon cakes here and here! 

With lots of love, 

Susanne 

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Eeyore Plushie Marshmallows

I venture into the realm of homemade character marshmallows not because I planned to, but because there is a request for me to teach character marshmallows in a baking studio. I didn't plan to master marshmallows because to me, they are just nothing more than a candy that is one-dimensional in taste and texture. But when I discovered homemade S'mores from scratch, it is a different story altogether! 

And so for a practice run at home, I decided to try making something that I have been holding off for the longest time --- Eeyore plushie! This plushie (or rather plushies since we have a few of them) has been sitting on our bed for a long time and I have been toying with the idea of making it into a bake/food but haven't found the right medium for it until now. Presenting my squishy Eeyore marshmallows! 

See how squishy it is in this video! 

This isn't class material by the way. Just a practice run for me to challenge myself to create something slightly more complex. 

I have to thank two very talented bakers for sharing their experiences with me on making character marshmallows. Please check out these two Instagram accounts (Gloria of miscellaneousmao and Amy of cookingwithamyy) to see their amazing work! 

I have to stress that a lot of how the marshmallows turn out has to do with practice. I have the experience of working with gelatin, Italian meringues and piping meringue cookies and choux pastry characters. The skillset I gathered from all that can be applied here.

I did a quick survey of the internet and find that character marshmellows are best made using Italian meringue. There are marshmallows made without egg whites but those will be harder to work with especially when you have multiple colours and more complex shapes. 

Gloria kindly pointed me to Claire's blog post on making cute character marshmallows. Please click on this link to view her very helpful and detailed post! I converted to grams so I don't have extra washing to do from measuring cups🙈. 

I did minor tweaks to the recipe and it works well. A few tips I would like to share (without revealing too much of my class material and what the experts mentioned that they would like to keep to themselves for the time being) that you may find helpful:

1. Use only cornstarch for dusting if you live in humid environment like me. Some people use icing sugar or a mix of cornstarch and icing sugar. 

2. Don't use piping tips. That way you can safely microwave the piping bag of marshmallow if necessary when it becomes too firm to pipe nicely. 

3. Use cookie cutters to mark out the area that the character is supposed to cover in your tray of cornstarch. That way you have reference points to indicate how you should pipe when you don't have a template. Unlike macarons or choux pastries, piping character marshmallows require you to do it more or less by freehand. Having reference points really help a lot to keep your characters more or less the same size and shape. You can see my example below. I used a rectangular cutter to mark out the spaces to pipe. 

4. Be generous with the dusting below the marshmallow. All experts stress this and I have to agree. It's a pain to try to release marshmallow stuck to your piping surface. 

Any for tips specific to this Eeyore plushie? Yes! Use a damp toothpick to mark out the indent on his face after the marshmallow has set a little but before dusting. I tried painting a faint line along with an indent, just an indent and without a line down the face at all. See the examples below. 

I asked my kids and hubby for their opinions and they all agree that with the indent alone looks the best. Without the line down the face in whatever form just isn't Eeyore anymore. 

Most people float their marshmallows in hot chocolate but the only beverages I drink are water, unsweetened teas and soup. I prefer them as S'mores instead, which happens to be my class material for character marshmallows! Stay tuned for my next blog post on my character S'mores class! The combination of lightly spiced, sweet and savoury Graham cracker, rich chocolate layer, and soft gooey marshmallow on top that is toasted until caramelized and crisp at the top 😍😍😍. The flavour explosion and combination of textures is amazing!! Here is Eeyore before and after toasting! 

I placed a small bar of chocolate under Eeyore before toasting like regular S'mores. We have a good laugh whenever we toast an Eeyore on homemade Graham cracker 😂. My kids love them and have fun eating even though they are in their early teens now. I use my small and cheap home oven toaster so the browning is uneven but it still tastes yummy! You may use a blowtorch if you have one. 

Follow me on Instagram @phay_shing if you would like to see more of my work as I am more active there than on Facebook and I don't post all my work on the blog either. 

With love, 

Phay Shing

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'Pooh in Rat Suit' Mixed Berry Mini Macaron Carousel

It's been a few years since I made a mini macaron carousel! Finally made one again! 

This time, it is a Winnie the Pooh themed carousel with my own spin of dressing him in a rat suit for a little lady born in the year of the Rat. 

Winnie in rat suits! 

I used the Swiss meringue method to make the macaron shells. The Pooh macaron shells are decorated with edible marker and royal icing. As the carousel is a structure, the filling is a very firm strawberry raspberry ganache. 

The carousel with name and age added in! I personally prefer the look of carousels without such distractions so I chose the one without the letterings as the cover photo. 

I hope this mini macaron carousel puts a smile on your face as it did for me! 

With love,

Phay Shing

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Pooh and Friends Chiffon Cake

 

Tigger: "Let's play together!" <3
Can you tell which is cake and which is plushie? =)

Posting another backlog which I made last year! The bundt is made from pandan chiffon cake. I was reminded of this creation when I saw the many egg cakes being posted on social media as Easter is coming. I think hot cross is a better reminder of Good Friday and Easter as its the time when Jesus died on the cross and rose again. Eggs I suppose represent new life and resurrection from what I googled. Anyway, hope you like this sweet creation and may you have a meaningful and blessed Easter.

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Pooh Bee Chiffon Cake

 

Always wanted to try making a cute animated video on my cakes. Here is my humble attempt. Can you tell what is happening between Pooh and his friends?

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Winnie the Pooh Mango Choux Pastries in Macaron Teacups

Mangoes are still cheap and plentiful at the moment so I hope you aren't tired of seeing more mango creations from me 🤣. Presenting my mixed genre creation that I was working on while we aren't allowed to bake for sale. Pooh bear mango choux pastries in macaron teacups, topped off with strawberry meringue Piglets!!

Here is another look of them without the distractions in front.

You may refer to my previous post for detailed recipe for the Piglet meringues.

The focus of this blog post will be for the new mango filling recipe that is yummy both frozen in freezer and chilled in the fridge. Up to you which way you want to serve it.

You may refer to this post for the detailed recipe of choux pastry batter with craquelin. I used a 3cm craquelin on 2.5cm piped batter for Pooh's head. I used a pinch of yellow powder food colouring and some white gel food colouring for both craquelin and batter.

Highly recommended to use perforated mat if you have it! Baking time is about 45-50min to thoroughly bake dry the cases. Temperature depends on your oven as each one behaves differently. As a rule of thumb, start off high but drop the temperature later on. This is to ensure nice puffy cases but minimal browning. 

I piped the ears and hands after baking the heads just to have a better gauge of the size of the small parts that need to be piped. You may pipe these on parchment lined baking trays. These just need to bake for about 15 min

Freshly baked ears and hands! Oops some pieces got blown away by the fan in my kitchen 😂

When choux cases are baked until dry, they can be stored for a week at room temperature while staying crisp, much like cookies. So take your time to dry out the cases if you like crisp pastries. Sometimes this can take up to an hour of leaving the cases in the oven.

You may refer to this post on how to make the teacup macarons. I just decorated it in a way to suit the Pooh theme.

Macaron teacups decorated and assembled with royal icing. 

I was cute overloaded by this sight even though it was still works-in-progress! The ears can simply be inserted into the choux cases but the hands need to be glued on using some royal icing. Do use a zester to grind off a little bit of the hands so that it fits nicely on the surface of the head.

I am a big fan of strong but balanced flavours without being too sweet in desserts. The lightened mango pastry cream is one of them. I inject fruity flavours by using a combination of cooked puree and chopped fresh fruit pieces. Do adjust the amount of sugar according to taste and sweetness level of the mangoes you are using. You may use more or less whipping cream as you wish.

Recipe for lightened mango pastry cream
Ingredients:
150 mango puree, strained
50g fresh milk (or coconut milk)
1tsp vanilla extract
2 egg yolks
10g sugar
A pinch of salt
20g cornflour
18g unsalted butter
80g dairy or non-dairy (or a mix) whipping cream
1 mango, cut into small pieces

Steps :
1. Place puree, milk and vanilla in a small saucepan and heat on medium low heat until steaming but not boiling.

2. In the mean time, sift cornflour into a heavy mixing bowl. Add sugar and salt and whisk together. Add egg yolks and whisk until a paste is formed.

3. While whisking the egg yolk mixture continuously, slowly pour in hot puree /milk mixture in a thin stream. Pour the mixture back into saucepan.

4. Heat saucepan over medium low heat while whisking continously. Once the mixture starts to thicken, remove from heat and continue whisking until smooth. Return to heat and continue to whisk and cook until desired consistency.  Some people prefer runnier filling, some prefer firmer. Remove from heat and add butter into the pastry cream. Whisk until butter is combined into the mixture.

5. Sieve the pastry cream into a bowl and press cling wrap onto the surface. Chill in fridge until cool, at least an hour.

6. Whip whipping cream until firm peaks. If using full dairy, be careful not to overwhip.

7. Take the pastry cream out from fridge and whip with spatula to loosen it a little. Add a little at a time to the whipped cream and fold it in. Add chopped mangoes and fold it in.

If you prefer the "ice-cream" version, freeze the lightened pastry cream in a thin layer in a container or lined baking tray. This is to ensure the cream freezes quickly and does not turn icy too much. You can also chill the cream in fridge until ready to fill. Always fill the cases just before consuming to enjoy the crisp cases with cold and yummy filling.

Folding in the pastry cream and chopped mangoes. 

Here is another look of the cute Poohs!

My kids love the ice-cream version so much they have been having it on consecutive days for a few days!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Mango Sticky Rice Macarons

Since homebakers aren't allowed to sell bakes for a period of time during this circuit breaker, I took the chance to experiment with a new flavour for macarons that I don't normally have time for - - mango sticky rice!

Are you feeling a little like Pooh and Piglet here, getting really tired of quarantine/ lockdown/circuit breaker? Hang in there, it will end one day! 

As this was a "do for fun" bake, I didn't think too hard about planning. I baked these along with a small batch of macarons for a friend which I froze. As a result, I didn't prepare enough batter and here was what I did 😂

Nobody looks at the bottom side of macarons right? 🤣

I used the Swiss meringue method and you may find the recipe over here.

Freshly baked shells! 

I used black edible marker to add on the facial features of Piglet and Pooh.

What I would like to share in this post is the recipe for this new filling. I drew on my experience working on pulut hitam (black glutinous rice) macarons 3 years ago to adapt a famous and well loved Thai dessert to a macaron flavour.  You could just slap on the coconut milk covered glutinous rice and fresh mango slice between 2 macaron shells. But this doesn't keep well. The rice is either too dry (if used as it is from the dessert) with storage, or too wet (if you make rice pudding) so it turns the shells soggy in no time. I came up with a sticky rice filling that still retains some glutinous rice bite, full of coconut and pandan aroma, and yet with a consistency of buttercream like regular macaron filling. My kids could taste all these elements when they bite into the macaron! The mango part is more straightforward as it is just homemade mango jam/compote. I like it not perfectly smooth. When cooking the jam, try to reduce it until the jam is really thick and chunky. Mine was just slightly a little too wet still. I would reduce it further next time.

The portion of recipe for coconut sticky rice and mango jam is more than enough to fill 20 macarons but it is easier to prepare these items in larger portions. You may freeze any extras for future use. We start by making the mango jam.

Mango jam
Ingredients
2 mangoes, cut into chunks (about 330g worth of mango chunks for mine)
5g lemon juice
20g sugar (depends on taste and sweetness of mangoes)
1/8 tsp salt

Notes: I try to make my jams for macaron filling more tart as the shells are sweet, just to balance the flavours a little. Feel free to add less sugar or more lemon juice to make it really sour if you wish.

Steps :
1. Place all ingredients in a saucepan. Cook until reduced and thickened like jam, using a potato masher to mash the mangoes into smaller chunks. Use medium low heat and stir often.

2. Cool completely and store in airtight container. This can be prepared in advance and stored in fridge or freezer.

Coconut sticky rice
Ingredients:
1 cup glutinous rice
1  to 1.25 cups of water
1/8 tsp salt
A few pandan leaves, knotted
200ml coconut cream
40g full fat milk (you may replace with coconut cream but I didn't want to end up having a half-used packet opened)

Notes: I used a lazy way of preparing the rice that is faster and easier. Traditionally, the glutinous rice is prepared by steaming and those recipes call for longer soaking times of 2 to 6 hours. I just use the rice cooker since I have it. I adapted the recipe from here. I didn't add any sugar as the macaron shells are sweet and the sticky rice part will be mixed with a white chocolate base, which is sweet.

Steps:
1. Rinse rice until water runs clear. About several times.

2. Put rice, water, salt and pandan leaves in rice cooker. Let the rice soak for 30 min. Start the rice cooker. Let the cooked rice sit in cooker for 5 min.

3. Loosen the rice. Transfer into saucepan along with coconut cream and milk. Cook over medium low heat until rice absorbs most of the liquid.

4. Briefly blend the rice. Blend less if you prefer more bite, blend more if you prefer smoother rice pudding.

Blended sticky rice is super sticky! 

You may freeze the excess until you need to use it. Be sure to freeze in smaller portions as needed so you don't have to defrost everything.

This next part is the unique part of the filling. I didn't directly use the sticky rice as it is problematic with its high water content. I made ganache using the sticky rice puree with a 1:1.2 ratio of white chocolate base: sticky rice puree. The introduction of more fat into the filling helps to prevent the shells from turning soggy too fast.

Coconut sticky rice ganache
Ingredients (fills about 20 macarons) :
80g glutinous rice puree, thawed if frozen
40g white chocolate, chopped or use chips
10g cocoa butter (may replace with white chocolate)
15g unsalted butter or shortening
20g coconut cream powder
1/8 tsp salt

Notes: feel free to double or triple the portion if you find it easier to work with.

Steps :
1. Place white chocolate, cocoa butter, butter/ shortening and salt into microwave safe bowl. Heat on medium power for 10 sec and stir. Repeat until melted. You may use double-boiling method but be careful not to overheat.

2. Chill the melted chocolate mixture in freezer for 1 to 2 min and whip until smooth. Repeat until mixture has a light fluffy buttercream texture. You may use an ice bath and electric mixer if you wish.

3. Add coconut cream powder and mix well.

4. Add 10g of sticky rice puree at a time and fold in until incorporated before adding more.

Transfer into piping bag to fill the shells.

When you assemble, make sure you coat both top and bottom shells with a layer of coconut sticky rice ganache to insulate them from the wetter mango filling. Pipe a wall of sticky rice ganache to encase the mango jam.

Store in airtight container lined with paper towel to absorb any excess moisture released, in the fridge. Best consumed a day or two after assembly. Freeze immediately after assembly for longer storage. Always keep the airtight container closed and left to sit at room temperature for 15-20min before opening to prevent condensation from forming on the shells.

A peek at the insides! 

With love,
Phay Shing

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'Olaf, Piglet and Pooh on Scooter' Macarons on Chocolate Cake

Someone requested for a really chocolatey cake (no light and fluffy chiffon cake please), with a scooter themed macaron cake topper and with some of the birthday girl's favourite characters. This was what I came up with 😊

The chocolate cake is not just any chocolate cake. It's a wickedly dark chocolate cake with character! I made four layers of Rose Levy Beranbaum's German chocolate cake with a mixture of chocolate custard and whipped dark chocolate ganache filling between the cake layers, topped off with dark chocolate drip and a little salted caramel white chocolate whipped ganache on the sides of the cake just to give a little colour contrast and variation in flavour. Mdm Rose's chocolate cake recipe although chocolatey, is oil based and dairy free so I decided to make a richer custardy filling to compliment this dense in texture but light-on-the-palate sponge. Be prepared for a long post because of the many components involved in this bake.

And I haven't started on the macarons 😅. I will briefly mention what I did for the macarons since details can be found in other posts. I used the reduced sugar Swiss method recipe for this batch as I also made a small batch of hemispherical macarons for another request concurrently. I wouldn't use my swiss method recipe with significantly lower sugar for this as I need the stability for the many colours involved. Just to share some photos of the process...

Piping the characters. I piped Olaf’s arms separately and also added some cornflour to the batter to make it less prone to breaking.

Freshly baked shells!

I filled them with matcha white chocolate ganache or dark chocolate ganache, both whipped versions for a lighter texture.

I forgot to mention that the details were added on using black edible marker or royal icing.

Here's a peek at the feet on macaron shells! Olaf's arms are stuck into the filling.

And of course, it is really satisfying to see the fully constructed piece! I glued the pieces together with stiff royal icing.

The German chocolate cake recipe is adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Heavenly Cakes recipe book. I used smaller sized pans (7.5" diameter) but baked four layers of sponge (instead of two 9 x 2" pans in her original recipe) so I scaled the ingredients accordingly. I took the liberty of adding a coffee liqueur and reduced the sugar by about 7%.

German chocolate cake
Ingredients (makes four 7.5 x 1.5" round cakes):
80g alkalized cocoa powder
144g boiling water
130g canola oil
88g egg yolks (about 5)
216g egg whites (about 7)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp Kahlua coffee liqueur
90g cake flour
90g plain flour
330g caster sugar
2.5 tsp baking powder
1 and 1/3 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 175℃. Line base of baking tins with parchment paper. Mdm Rose suggested using cake strips for the baking tins. I just place a tray of water at the base of oven to create steam and a similar effect of slowing down the temperature rise of the cake tins.

2. In mixing bowl, whisk cocoa and boiling water until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent loss of moisture through evaporation. Leave to cool to room temperature. About 30 minutes.

3. Add yolks and oil into mixing bowl. Use electric mixer to beat on low speed. Gradually increase to medium speed and beat for 1 min or until smooth and shiny like buttercream. Scrape down and beat in vanilla and coffee liqueur for a few seconds.

4. In a medium bowl, whisk flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Sift the mixture. Add half of flour mixture to chocolate mixture. Beat on low speed until dry ingredients moistened. Scrape down the bowl. Repeat with remaining flour mixture. Increase mixer speed to medium high and beat for 1 minute. Batter will be thick.

5. Add egg whites and beat on low speed until incorporated. Increase to medium high speed and beat for another 2 min. Batter will be like thick soup.

6. Transfer batter into prepared baking tins. They will be filled till about 1/4 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean and cake center springs back when pressed in the middle. Immediately unmould the cakes and cool completely upright on wire rack.

You may trim to tops of the cakes with a long serrated knife if there's a dome after cakes have cooled. Store between parchment paper in airtight condition until ready to assemble. I bake the cakes a day before assembling with filling.

Chocolate custard
Ingredients:
250g fresh milk
2 egg yolks
30g sugar (use more if you prefer sweeter)
20g cornflour
15g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp Kahlua coffee liqueur (substitute with vanilla if you don't have)
15g unsalted butter, cool but softened
1/8 tsp salt

Steps:
1. In a heavy mixing bowl, whisk egg yolks with 1.5 tbs of milk from the portion above. In another bowl, sift together cocoa, cornflour, sugar and salt. Add the sifted mixture to the egg yolks. Whisk until a smooth paste forms.

2. Place milk, vanilla and coffee liqueur in a saucepan. Heat until it just starts to bubble at the edges.

3. Carefully pour the hot milk in a thin stream into the egg mixture while whisking continuously. This is to temper the egg yolks. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan.

4. Cook the mixture over medium low heat while whisking continuously. Once the mixture thickens, remove from heat and whisk vigorously until smooth. Return back to heat and continue whisking until custard is thickened to your preferred consistency. I usually cook for about a couple of minutes more. For this cake filling that is going to be mixed with whipped chocolate ganache, I cook until it is able to form soft peaks. For Choux pastry fillings, I cook until it is able to hold firm to stiff peaks.

5. Remove saucepan from heat and add butter. Whisk until butter is incorporated.

Adding butter to custard

6. Reserve about 100-120g custard for coating each layer of sponge. Reserve 180-200g of custard to mix with 200g of whipped ganache. Press a piece of cling wrap on surface of custard to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in fridge and whisk to loosen before using.

Whipped dark chocolate ganache
Ingredients:
75g bitter dark chocolate couverture* (73.5%)
75g dark chocolate couverture (56%)*
150g heavy cream

*You may choose to use one type of couverture

Steps:
1. Place everything in a heatproof or microwaveable bowl, depending on how you want to melt the chocolate. You may use double-boiling or microwave to melt the chocolate slowly. Stir until all chocolate is melted and the ganache is smooth.

2. Chill in fridge for 15-20min or leave out in air-con room until scoopable consistency. Whip with an electric mixer or spatula until lightened in texture. Be careful not to over whip or it will become grainy.

3. Fold in 200g of whipped ganache into 180-200g of chocolate custard. Reserve the rest of the ganache for frosting the sides and top of the cake. Transfer the portion of ganache for frosting the cake into piping bag with a small hole cut.

Dark chocolate drip
Ingredients:
50g dark chocolate couverture (56%)*
30g bitter dark chocolate couverture (73.5%)*
65g heavy cream

* You may choose to use one type of couverture

Steps:
Follow step 1 of whipped chocolate ganache above. Make this only after the layers of cake have been assembled and you are about to apply the drip on the cake. Transfer ganache into piping bag with a small hole cut when you are ready.

Salted caramel white chocolate whipped ganache
Ingredients:
80g salted caramel chips (I used Hershey's)
20g white chocolate chips
35g heavy cream

Steps:
Follow steps 1 and 2 of whipped dark chocolate ganache. Be even more careful not to overheat this as it's white chocolate based.  Chilling in fridge should require a shorter time than the dark chocolate ganache as the chocolate to cream ratio is much higher here. Transfer to piping bag with a small hole cut.

Assembly
1. Place an 8" cakeboard on a turntable and apply a small smear of whipped ganache in the middle. Place a sponge on top.

2. Apply a thin coat of pure chocolate custard with a spatula. This will help to moisten the sponge.

3. Pipe the mixture of chocolate custard and whipped chocolate ganache on top.

4. Place another layer of sponge on. Repeat until all four layers of sponge are assembled. Gently but firmly press the top of the sponge downwards to squeeze out any air spaces between filling and cake layers.

5. Apply some whipped dark chocolate ganache to fill up any gaps at the sides of the cake where the filling layers are. Use a bench scraper to scrape off any excess ganache. You may choose to frost the top of the sponge with a thin layer of whipped dark chocolate ganache if you wish.

6. Pipe some whipped salted caramel white chocolate ganache as you wish. You may pipe the lines in a discontinuous fashion if you wish.

7. Use a bench scraper to scrape off excess salted caramel ganache and to smoothen out the frosting on the sides of the cake. I go for a rustic semi naked look so I don't have to care too much about being neat.

8. Apply the dark chocolate drip along the circumference of the cake. Try to turn the turntable and pipe at the same rate so that the spacing between drips is more or less even. Some drips can go longer than the others. I made sure there is sufficient space for the name near the base of the cake. Quickly cover the top of the cake with more ganache and smoothen it out with a spatula.

A close up view of the cake...

I don't work with fondant so I used vanilla chiffon sponge which I baked concurrently with an earlier request and used alphabet cutters to cut the name out. I used a little salted caramel ganache to glue the name on.

Do store macaron cake toppers and naked or semi naked cakes separately in the fridge as the moisture released from the cake will turn the macarons soggy quickly. Only if the whole cake is frosted with buttercream that doesn't contain too much liquid content should be placed in contact or same confined storage space as macarons.

Just to share what I do in the kitchen when I work on bakes sometimes...I smeared some leftover chocolate custard on chocolate sponge trimmings to have a try...😋😋😋. Wickedly chocolatey! Do wait for a couple of days before eating the assembled cake to let the sponge and filling come together. It becomes more fudge-like and rich with storage! Let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes before enjoying all that chocolate goodness!

Thank God the cake and macarons were very well received!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Birthday Pooh Ufufy Chiffon Cake

Good night, sweet dreams! <3

As you can tell by now, I am a big fan of Winnie the Pooh and piglet! This is a big version of my previous Pooh Ufufy Chiffon Cake. The hat was baked from a paper cone =).

It is also naturally colored using the range from Magic colours.

Giving you a big hugs! xoxo

With love,
Susanne

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'Winnie the Pooh' in Heart Shaped Choux Pastries

I have begun taking step by step photos for my Deco Choux Pastries book! It's only been three days but I am exhausted 😅. I have planned 5 weeks of work and on the 6th week, it's when the photoshoot with the Marshall Cavendish team will happen. Although I didn't plan to blog about this, I thought I might as well. Just in time for Valentine's Day!

Winnie the Pooh peeking out from heart shaped choux pastry!

I was taking step by step photos for these heart shapes and thought I might as well have a little fun and fill one of the cases since I baked extras. I was in a rush so I just used instant pudding to make Pooh and filled the rest of the case with nutella.

Did you know that you can easily make fancy shaped pastries? They don't need to be round all the time although round is great!

Making heart shaped choux pastries is fairly easy and I will show you how in the upcoming recipe book! I will be slowing down with blog posts for real until a little while after the photoshoot. Unless I suddenly have the bandwidth and my hands itch to make something 😆.

Happy Valentine's Day!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Hello Kitty & Pooh Valentine's Day Macaron Teacups

I get all excited about coming up with original and cute overloaded creations. This is one of them! It's for a boyfriend who wanted to surprise his girlfriend for Valentine's Day. I am sure you can tell she's a Hello Kitty and Winnie the Pooh fan!

The whole teacup setup is made of macarons, with the exception of the stick for the heart balloon

I made this concurrently with my "Heart in a Teacup" macarons so you may refer to that post for more details on making the macaron teacup. I used reduced-sugar Swiss method for the teacups.

I made Hello Kitty, Pooh and the teeny hearts on a separate day along with a few other unicorn heads and some random characters. And because the quantity is so small, I chose to use the French method for these. You may refer to this post for a cornflour-stabilized French method recipe that I used for this bake.

Piping the tiny shells! I mainly used Wilton #3 and #5 piping tips for these

Decorating the shells with fine black edible marker was a challenge too! Thank God I made extra shells!

I filled the tiny macarons with dark chocolate ganache

I filled the teacups with lavender Earl grey whipped white chocolate ganache.

Special gifts for your loved ones need not happen on special days like Valentine's Day. Do something special for your loved ones on random days. That's more special 😉.

With love,
Phay Shing

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