Happy Valentines day!

Cinnamon and vanilla shortbread cookies with a heartfelt message on it:

 The classic chocolate dipped strawberry, this time in a dark 70% chocolate:

Mini cupcakes for your sweetheart:

And all the packaging:

Baby shower!

These adorable baby cookies are part of the wonderful baby shower Georgia was hosting. They weren't sure of the gender so we decided on a neutral yellow and green. The baby bum is super cute as well!

Pretty In Pink Macarons

Raspberry macarons topped off with pink fondant flowers.

Tennis Ball Green

These brightly colored confections were for a charity tennis tournament. Devil's food cupcakes topped with chocolate buttercream and "tennis ball" fondant with neon green pistachio macarons.

Cereal and Milk

Froot Loop macarons with milk filling. I love the colors and texture the broken up pieces give to the top of the shell. I wanted to go for a cereal milk ganache a la Momofuku Milk Bar but I couldn't quite achieve the taste so I stuck with a very milky tasting ganache. The filling is the first hit of flavor you get but the middle and end note is the fruity cereal taste for sure!

Salted Caramel Coconut Macarons

Trying to use up leftover coconut buttercream, I made these:
Salted caramel is always good, but I didn't realize how awesome it would taste with the addition of coconut! Definitely a keeper!

Hazelnut Macarons

Macarons made with ground hazelnuts in place of ground almonds and filled with a hazelnut ganache.

Christmas Baking

Yes, I've been totally M.I.A. the past 2 weeks. The combo of all the birthday dinners and christmas baking left me exhausted. Hopefully this will make it up a bit. A few pictures from my holiday baking.

These were molded chocolates brushed with gold tinted cocoa butter filled with a baileys ganache:

Pink Macarons filled with Lychee pate de fruit and rose buttercream (pre-sandwiching):



White chocolate mendiants topped with pistachio, apricot, praline almond, dried blueberries, and craisins. I also did some dark chocoalte ones with dried pineapple but these had looked prettier:


Gingerbread reindeer!


Chocolates that I boxed up. I have salted caramel, chai, and the baileys:

Macarons

The IM method of macarons filled with a hazelnut ganache. Thanks to Chef Bruno for the great recipe!

Also thanks to my sister for all the recent photos and more to come.

Hazelnut Macarons

French macarons are probably one of the most finicky cookies to make and I've had my share of ones that didn't turn out. The ideal ones have tall "feet", a round, smooth top and have that addictive chewy texture.

Here's the recipe I used:

Macarons:

250g almond powder

225g egg whites

500g icing sugar

Method:

Sift together the almond powder and 400g icing sugar. Whip the whites with the remaining sugar till stiff peaks. Fold in the almond mixture in thirds and continue to fold till the batter sinks into itself when it is lifted up with the spatula.

Pipe small rounds with a round piping tip (the tip is very important to get them perfectly round) and sprinkle chopped hazelnuts if desired.

Let them dry for 30 mins until they aredry to the touch. Bake in a 325 degree oven with the door slightly ajar (I put a wooden spoon there) for about 20 mins till starting to get golden brown.

Cool and carefully lift off. Fill with buttercream.

Penguins and Turtles

I was at Daiso (the Japanese $2 store) a while back and found these adorable cookie cutters so I finally put them to good use. The base for these cookies are a maple sugar cookie and it's decorated with rolled fondant and royal icing lettering. I love the turtle. So adorable!

Red Roses

This was a cake made for a 35th birthday for a woman who wanted a coffee and hazelnut flavour. I layered chocolate sponge cake that was soaked in a kahlua syrup, with hazelnut buttercream and coffee buttercream and covered it in a pale yellow fondant. The theme was red and the invitations had a really beautiful dark red rose on it so I decided to imitate that with some gum paste roses on the top. Below are some sugar cookies that went along with the cake:

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Just in time for Christmas.

Bridal Sugar Cookies

These are some sugar cookies that I made for a bridal shower recently. It is the same recipe as the ones with the "fall" design but I piped on "S'' for the bride-to-be in bright pink (the colour theme of the shower) and white doves carrying a heart. A little sprinkle of sugar for extra sparkle and you get really pretty, girly bridal shower cookies! The pink is actually brighter than it seems in the photos ( I'm still not that great of a photographer; my sister's better). I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but the recipe is actually form Martha Stewart here. It's great, holds the shape perfectly and not too sweet at all.

Sugar and More Sugar

Now that I'm anxiously waiting for my new job at DB Bistro to start, I have a bit of free time. Things I'm going to do/ have been doing: Sleeping in, catching up on tv, baking! I'm so happy to have had this break! And I'm happy I get to bake at home again!

The first thing I made were these sugar cookies. I don't have really fancy cookie cutters so I decided on just plain rounds and piping different patterns on them. It's a little late, I know for a "fall" theme but technically, it still is. The acorn ones are my favourite.


Oh, and marshmallows. My sister has been waiting for these forever, and I've been meaning make them for a long time too but never got around to it. I really wanted to cover some in toasted coconuts but I didn't feel like going out in the rain to pick some up so I just did some plain vanilla and some rose ones where I put in some rose syrup. I tried cutting some in strips and tying them into a knot like I've seen before in some bakeries in France but mine's ended up breaking. I think I need a stiffer recipe. This one is very fluffy and soft, and just melt in your mouth!

Marshmallow

1 egg white, beaten to stiff peaks
90 ml water
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tbsp corn syrup
90 ml water
1 1/2 packs gelatin
vanilla

-soften the gelatin with the water and melt. Leave aside. Boil the water, sugar, and corn syrup until it reaches 125 degrees celsius. Slowly pour it into the whites while whipping and add the gelatin. Whip until it cools down and is thick. Quickly add the flavouring and pour into your mold sprayed with pam. Dust icing sugar on top and let it set for an hour. Unmold and cut with a wet knife. Roll all edges in icing sugar and let it set overnight.

Smiley Cookies!

These are probably the happiest cookies ever! Don't you think? This is Martha Stewart's recipe for lemon cornmeal cookies and they've got an excellent texture and crunch to them due to the cornmeal. The lemon zest adds a fresh flavour and I just added some chocolate piping 'cause it looked so damn cute! You can't really tell in these pictures but they do look quite yellow after baking so they almost look like cute little suns.

And here's the whole lot of them:

Lemon Cornmeal Cookies
by Martha Stewart

12 tbsp butter
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 tbsp lemon zest
1 egg
1 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

-Beat the butter, sugar, salt, and zest. Add the egg and beat till combined. Add cornmeal and flour and mix till just combined. Roll into 3/4" balls and flatten on baking sheet. bake at 325 degrees fahrenheit till bottoms are golden (8-10 mins). Cool and decorate as desired. I got about 50 cookies out of this recipe.