Macaron Baking Class By lovely Aunty Yochana

Hey Hey! As promised, I'm updating on the Macaron Baking Class on the 21st december.

The "Shi Fu" of this class is none other than Aunty Yochana. She's a petite lady, very friendly and really generous to share her baking tippys and she really make sures we understand every single bit of things!

Hehe, so after leaving her house.. I'm so much richer (in terms of knowledge on baking)! I would love to join her class again!

Pictures time! (Million of thanks to evelyn for sending me the pictures!)

Aunty Yochana's hand at work! See those macarons? Each piece looks the same size.. My macarons are never the same size.. Hee

Macaron Tartlettes (before baking)... I especially like the tart base.. So buttery and nice!!

Macaron Tartlettes (after baking), these tartlettes are so tiny and prettyyy! They're nice to eat, difficult to do... Lots of effort required!

Aunty Yochana serve all of us high tea as well! And boy, her bakes are tasty! I love the chocolate truffle cake, durian swissroll and the christmas fruit cake! There are alot more, but I've a poor memory.. can't remember.. Hehe..

I look forward to more of her baking lesson!

Le Pasta... Special!

Well well.. this not a typical post of my bakes but rather, my main intention is to introduce all of you this fabulous stall! I mean, in order for someone to talk about your food, it must be really good or really bad, right? In this case, trust me, the food is YUMMY!


That day my sis, her BF and I pass by Bukit Timah Food Center, we decided to have our lunch there, and we tried LE PASTA.

It's located at Bukit Timah Market & Food Centre #02-158.

I tried this stall for twice.. And each time, the pasta dishes did not disappoint me!

I know from the young chef that he once work in a high class italian restaurant, and he operate this stall to gain experiences. I tried before the Truffle Scented Carbonara (actually my sis ordered this, but I took abt 1/4 of it), the chef uses truffle oil in this, and base on what I understand, I know that this truffle oil is an expensive stuff.. And I double check with the chef to see if I'm right, andbingo, I was told that he bought this small bottle of truffle oil for $20++.

Indeed, this truffle oil really spice up the whole pasta dish and brings the flavour to a higher level! Within this dish, there are egg, parmesan, bacon and truffle oil of course, and I really enjoy every bite of this dish!

Next up on the list, Frutti De Marie, I ordered this on the 2 diff occasion. It's actually a seafood base pasta and I like it because they have fresh seafood that's cook till perfection! It includes squid that are cooked till just nice not overcook (chewy, hard to chew), generous with the prawns, very big mussels, and lastly my favourite: Scallop! Yeah, some pasta stall (hawker) sells seafood pasta, but I never chance upon one that uses real, fresh scallop.

My sis's BF order Bolognese, I did not try that, but I heard raving reviews from him.

Lastly, we order 2 bowls of Home-Made Mushroom Soup, we was wondering if we'll be serve with canned mushroom soup (like most hawker western stall did). God, the mushroom soup is one of the best I've ever tried! Nothing like those canned ones! I can really spot and see chop-till-fine mushrooms in it! Absolutely delish! I like it very much, in fact, all of us love this and we slup it up with 10minutes? Then the chef's brother told us that this soup was sold in his previous workplace (italian restaurant) for about $15, and here, he only sell for $2.80! The chef's brother assure us that the taste of the soup with not be compromised at all.

I noticed that sliced garlics are added to the pasta. I wanted to pick out the garlic and throw on the table, but my sis asked me to try it, which I did.. The garlic taste is very subtle and not like what I imagined them to be... "smelly".

Extra toppings are available, starting from 50cents..
There are 3 choices of pasta as well, spaghetti, linguine and penne.

Maybe you would like to "preview" the menu first??

And overall, the rating for Le Pasta will be 8.5/10!

(I couldn't hide the fact that my stomach are growling now.. or rather.. whenever I think of Le Pasta's Pasta.. Hehehe)

And I'm terribly sorry that I did not provide any pictures.. Actually after I've ordered the food, I made a mental note to myself to remember the picture takings... But eventually when the food arrives right in front of me, I totally forgotten about the mental note, and attack the food like no tomorrow (cause they're too delicious.. hee). Lastly, lots of apologies for the lousy quality of pictures!

*Lesson learnt... mental notes are NOT work-able (for me)*

I promise, the next time I'm there, I'll take pictures of the foodies before attacking them.. Hehee!

My Chocolate Chiffon Cake

After finishing my going-to-due report, I decided to reward myself by drowning myself in preparing cake batter, suffocate myself with the fragrance of freshly baked cakes.. Nah, don't worry! I'm not torturing myself, in fact, I enjoy these process!

Shall share with you the pictures of this lovely chiffon cake!


I took this picture when the cake is still in the oven doing sauna.. haha

A slice of cake

Looks abit dense, but trust me, this cake is soft, fluffy and nice!

I find that this arrangement looks like a face! Can you spot the eyes and the mouth (or rather beards)?

I bake the divided the chiffon into 3 smaller pans as I don't have the big chiffon pan, so I utilised the 2 mini chiffon pan from daiso.

Sharing with all of you, this recipe:

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

Ingredients

• 4 egg yolks
  40g cocoa powder (I use 20g hershey's, 20g Valrhora)
  130ml water
  130g sugar (I reduced to 85g)
  ¼ tsp salt (I add only a pinch)
  150g cake flour
  1 tsp baking powder
  85g corn oil
  
  4 egg whites
  90g sugar1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Methods

1. Sieve all dry ingredients together.
2. Add in the egg yolks, water and sugar into the dry ingredients and stir till smooth.
3. Add in corn oil and stir till smooth.
4. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy and pour in sugar in 3 batches and beat for about 2 minutes till stiff.
5. Gently fold in egg whites into the yolk mixture and pour into a 23-cm chiffon cake pan
6. Bake at 175oC for about 1 hour or until skewer comes out clean.
7. Invert chiffon cake immediately onto a wire rack and let it cool before removing it from pan.
8. Slice and serve.

I got the recipe from Here.

I didn't follow the recipe strictly, I add and minus base on my family preferences.. I add in a tsp of coffee granules (by dissolving it in the 130ml water). But I didn't notice the taste of coffee at all, I think next time I attempt this I will add in 1 tbsp, and a note to myself, I will add in some chocolate liquer into the batter on my next attempt!

By the way, I'm going to get myself a chiffon pan tml after school at phoon huat! Let's welcome more chiffon cakies!! Woo-Hoo!

I really enjoy and love chiffons to bits.. So nice and soft! And I find that stuffing myself silly with chiffon is much more guilt-free than cakes that uses butter, and my family all love chiffons!

School starts tml, and its back to the stressful, busy days.. Welcome reports and practicals!

I love my practical sessions, dealing with chemicals, viruses, bacteria and microbes.. But I totally hate reports that I'll have to pass up.. Imagin dealing with at least 4 (at least 4 pgs) reports per wk.. Gosh, don't wanna imagin that at all..

Alright, I'll have to chase away those negative thoughts and embrace myself to work harder!

First try.. MACARONS!

Attempt macarons for the first time ever! Actually baking macarons was on my list for the longest time ever, but didn't manage to pluck up the courage to try as I've heard too much of the failures.. Therefore after going to Aunty Yochana's macaron class, I stop procastinating, and get started on MACARONS!!

Went to get the basic stuff needed for macarons!

After baking macarons, then I understand how joyous and how depressing it can be.. My virgin try turns yield half good and half bad macarons. Half of the macarons cracked, espcially the chocolate macarons, crack like nobody's business whereas the pink macaron fare slightly better, less cracks and more prominent dainty feets.

The bad macarons

And the good macarons!

I stayed vigilant by the oven, spotting for feet, for cracks and for everything that could possibly happen to my babies... Therefore when I spot the ugly crackings, my heart sank, and after I spot the crackings, I started search for the good macarons among the bads, when I spot some good ones, I get so happy again!

Haha, so whenever a batch of my babies in the oven baking, my mood tends to fluctuates up and down..

I totally forgot to take a picture of the good-and-bad chocolate macarons, because by that time, I was too tired to do so.. Spend a total of 5hours in the kitchen baking them..

When it comes to baking.. I tends to work like a snail in the kitchen and to add on, the macarons need to be rest..

I prepared the macaron shells on the 25th, then I pipe the fillings on the 26th as my sis's bf requested some for his function, and some macarons was given to B's family as well. Hope they like it..

Some of the ugly macarons went into my stomach. Never judge a macaron by it's appearence! The macarons might look ugly, but definately delish! Once you start poping, U can't stop!

I sandwich chocolate macarons with peanut apricot buttercream, combination might be weird, but personally I think that the peanut and apricot goes well together!

The pink macarons was sandwich with sesame buttercream. Personally I adore the pink macarons! Ain't they beautiful? (I've a soft spot for pinky stuffs!)

11 macarons went into a beautiful box, and was given to B, and he likes it!

As from what I understand from Aunty Yochana, cracking might be due to over-resting of the macarons, which happens in my case.. I rest the macarons for 45-50 minutes? I rest the macarons and meanwhile I do other things, thus it cracks...

Next attempt I shall pay closer attention to them!

Note Note: Goodbye Bakerzin (selling each macarons for $1.50)! Welcome to homebaked macarons by yours truly!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Ho Ho Ho HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS to all! Wishing all of you a blessed christmas!

Credits goes to... My Oven!

Without this lousy, but still work-able oven, I wouldn't be able to carry out my bakings and to indulge in my baking therepy..

This oven was built into the kitchen cabinet, in fact the whole kitchen was designed and built by the contractors, so when my dad bought the house, everything was fix nicely..

So I always has this mindset that this oven is for free.. Hahaha!

Anyway, if I were to be less picky, I consider this oven serving it's primarily function well. It's idiot-proof and really user friendly, just turn on the timer and the temperature, then off you send your bakes in.. *that's what I did*

I mean I don't understand what it meant by fan-based type etc.. I just use the most simple mode.. But nevertheless, my bakes still came out good and edible without being burnt.

Enough of those lengthy wordy tortures, showing you my humble oven:

Brand: ELBA

Interior view, I think it dn't have any fan in there.. *most likely?*

The Knobs..

Actually, I prefer those type of oven where you can key in the temp digitally.. Which I believe it to be more accurate. Maybe next time when I've my own home sweet home, I shall buy one big one so I can bake alot of things at a time.. Save money, save time!

HAHA!

Making my own Buttercream

Made my own butter cream today! It's my first try actually.. learned it during the macaron class, this butter cream is rich and nice!

I got the recipe from Aunty Yochana, and I do half of the recipe.

BUTTER CREAM

Ingredients

200g sugar
30g water
140g egg whites
300g Butter
300g Magarine (I use marianne, from sunlik)

Method

1. Boil sugar and water till thick but flowy
2. Whisk egg whites till fluffy, and pour in the hot syrup
3. Continue whisking the egg whites till cooled
4. Slowly add in the butter and magarine. Beat till thick and fluffy.

As I ran out of butter, so instead of using 150g of butter, I use only about 100g and top up the rest using magarine, it does not affect the taste much, except it's a wheeny bit salty.. I guess it must be due to the salted butter I'm using..

I have to made this in advance and store it in the fridge, this is to save myself from working extra hard on the 25th Dec as I will try to make macarons on that day!

Getting Ready..... To bake.... MACARONS!

Ok, finally after so long of procastinating and thinking if I should try macarons (the "in" thing now) I finally decided that "Yes, why not learn something new?"

So.. I sign up for Aunty Yochana macaron class! I attended the class yesterday and yes, I love her class, so informative and fun! Learn alot of things and got alot of tips from her as well! She's a lovely lady!

But too bad I haven't got the pictures from a fellow student, I promise, I'll post the pictures straight away upon receiving them!

So, after the macaron class, I went to Sunlik today to get the ingredients for macarons!

I bought icing sugar, butter, magarine, almond meal, color powder and cocoa powder!

So yeah, I shall post up the pictures after trying the macarons! *Cross fingers* Hope it turns out well and pretty!

Constant wishlist....

Christmas is just round the corner, I wish for all my "wants" to come true!

B has given me my X'mas prezzie, a silpat mat, which is reallllyyy useful to me, and yeah, when I received that gift, I was literally jumping up and down, down and up.. beaming with joy!

But apart from silpat mat, there are other things which I want as well... *Equally useful to me*

So 1st up on my list:







kitchenAid!! it's every baker's dream to own one of these beauties! Apart from pleasing my eyes, its really useful! Using this KitchenAid, will make every creaming session a happy one!


Ahem** Trust me, I won't be picky at all! If someone buy me this, I won't be picky with the colours! But if its in RED or PINK will be good! My fav colours!


*Oh gosh, "they" are really so beautiful*



Down the list, its:

Woppes, the picture seems to be quite small... But this is a digital weighing scale! Moreover, its a pink one!

This will be extremely useful as well! It helps me to measure ingredients thats required in 2g? 1g?

Usually I avoid such recipes, imagin how on earth am I suppose to measure out flour that in 2g, using those normal type of weighing scale.. the minimal is 10g...

So yeah, this will be useful as well... I'm those practical type of person, I don't wish for things that I've no use for.

On a side note, if someone sells KitchenAid to me at 100++ bucks, trust me, I'll buy it! *Fat Hope* (But I doubt there's anyone that would do so..)

Oh Santa, please grant me my wishes!!

Yoghurt Coffee Cake

Hiyee! Back in action again after hibernating for a long time! That day I've a sudden craving for some coffee, but at the same time, I want to stuff myself silly with some cakes.. So I came up with Coffee + Cake... And Tadah, COFFEE YOGHURT CAKE!

Like I mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of butter or margarine, therefore I use yoghurt and kick the butter aside.. But I couldn't provide the recipe for this Yoghurt coffee cake as I did this cake base on agar-ation, and I forgot to jot down the recipe.. =P

I'm too absent-minded for my age.. (Signs for aging?)

Well, anyway, this cake is quite moist and smell very nice! When its baking, the whole kitchen was filled with coffee scent, which makes me drools more! Moreover, this cake is not to sweet, which is good..

Based on what I did, the recipe yields about 10 muffins, and I alone polished off 2, my helper ate 2 as well, my mum and sis both ate 1 each. And the last 4 mini caffeine booster was given away to my granny. My mum commented that they love this as the coffee scent is really strong and enough to give them the caffeine boost! Hahah!