CNY 2011 Bakes - Macarons

Am glad that I had not lost the macaron-touch (if there's such a thing to begin with)... made these for a gathering of my maternal relatives. Everybody had a great time feasting on yummy food! And my contribution was these macarons and also almond agar-agar with longans. :)

Black Sesame Macarons

My heart was craving for something sweet for the past few days, so I gave in and baked some macarons! LOL.....

Used nutella to sandwich the shells as I was too lazy to make any ganache or buttercream.

Tribute to Teachers....

Teachers are the ones who help shape a child besides the parents. They play such an important role in a child's life!

I remember one particular teacher, Mr L, in my primary school. He was such a caring and doting teacher who welcomed everyone to to home. And it helped that it was a neighbourhood school and he stayed nearby. He was my mother tongue (Mandarin) teacher and I still remember vividly his appearance. He was tall (or maybe not? 'coz when you are 9 yo, everything looks pretty huge to you... not?), plump and always wearing a smile. He had kind words for everybody and even called us his "anak anak" (malay term for children).

Mr L was the person who introduced me to kiwis. I still remembered the 1st time I held a kiwi in my hands, not knowing what it was. His daughter was studying in NZ at that time and was back for a holiday. She brought the kiwis back and somehow 3 kiwis landed in my bag. I brought the kiwis home, and showed them to my mother... and she also had no idea what fruit it was except it's "that hairy thing" she called it. However, I can't seem to recall eating it. Maybe she tot it was an alien and got rid of it? I really dunno....

OK, back to my story....

I graduated from primary school and still occasionally will meet up with Mr L. He was just living in the next block to me at that time! We talked abt school, life and everything under the sun.

Fast forward to when I was in secondary 3, it suddenly dawned onto me that Mr L had not contacted me for the longest time. (don't call me heartless, but when you're a 15 yo, there seems to be never-ending activities/events/places to go to!). I picked up the phone and called him. In what seemed to be the longest wait, someone finally picked up the phone. I asked for Mr L.... the man over at the line asked me which Mr L I'm looking for? Turned out that he is the son of Mr L... so he's also Mr L.... anyway, I made myself clear and then I was told the bad news.... Mr L had passed away 3 mths ago! At that moment, I really did not know how to react. I was SHOCKED and put down the phone. It took me nearly 2 hours to recover from that shock and I decided I shd call again to find out the details. Eventually, I got to know everything that was.

Till today, my heart is full of regret. Why didn't I call sooner? If I had done that, I'll probably got to talk to my dear Mr L before he left this world. At least I'll get to hear his voice before he goes. Mr L had touched my heart and till today, he's still in that special place in my heart. He was truly a great teacher who taught me to give unconditionally and look at life from a different perspective. That I believe is more important than just learning academically. Lessons in life are not found in books, you have to experience it.

So as a tribute to teachers, I decided to bake some macarons for my kiddo's teachers.

I wish all teachers a very Happy Teacher's Day! To all the teachers who have touched the hearts of every child......

Thank you!

Sweet E has offered to help me promote my macs on her blog... and even went to the extent of getting studio setup to take a pic of the packaging!


For that, I thank you, E, from the bottom of my heart.


This is the shot of the packaging... beautiful, isn't it?

New Macs...

This is the new flavour which I did this weekends....

Peanut macaroons with salted caramel filling.... yum yum...

The total package...

I got some queries as to how I intend to package the macaroons as most of my potential customers wanted to present the macaroons as gifts.

This is how the packaging works for my first customers.... wad do you think??? Pretty and presentable enough? *wink*

Mac Attack!!!

Macarons and I went back a long way... we 1st "met" each other at a taiwanese blog last year. I was really intrigued by this dessert and back then, there wasn't a macaron craze in sg yet. So I absolutely had no idea how to go abt baking these except for the instructions on the blog. Well, I thot to myself, it shdn't be that difficult rite? After all, the ingredients are pretty straightforward and I had all the ingredients needed on hand. So one nite, I set abt making these macs... and needless to say, I FAILED big-time! The macs turned out very soft and had surfaces to rival the moon's. So i told myself, "ok... macs and me dun have the chemistry ".
Until this year when macs suddenly appeared in almost every local blog! Many ppl were baking and of course some succeeded, some failed. And it's only till then that I came to know that it's actually called macarons! (the taiwanese blog is in chinese mah!). And armed with this info, I started searching the internet for mac recipes. Still I can't make myself bake a batch of these... I duno why, maybe it's the fear of failure? maybe it's just plain laziness....

Images of macarons appeared everywhere I turned... so much so that it came to a point where I felt I must really give it a try again.

Based on what I've gathered, there's 2 ways of making this tooth-achingly sweet dessert. There's the usual whip-the-egg-white way and then there's the italian meringue way, which produces a very stable batter and some even commented that it's a fail-proof method. I decided to try the italian meringue method... (no prizes for guessing why). But then I realised that it means I need a candy thermometer! After asking ard and Elyn highlighted to me that the thermometer will turn into a white elephant 'coz there's no much use of it besides making candies, I did not get one. So how would I know if the sugar syrup had reached a certain temperature, u may ask.... well, I just eye-ball it! haha.... What I did was to let the syrup come to a boil and continue to let it boil for ard 1 min. Then I added it into the egg whites. Well, it worked! Then came to the part where I started mixing the grounded nuts and sugar into the egg white. I din know how to gaudge if it's to the correct texture. I read that the batter had to be like magma! Ermm... tat's a BIG problem to me 'coz the only time I see magma was on Discovery channel! *laughs*.... so again I had to trust my instincts.... Finally I piped the batter onto the baking trays, gave it a few raps to get rid of air bubbles and left it facing a fan blowing at full speed. When the surfaces no longer feels sticky, I sent it into the oven....

You can't imagine how happy I was when I spotted the "feets"! I was so happy that I was yelping away in the kitchen! and that was 11pm at nite. DD got up from her bed, all beary-eyed and came into the kitchen and asked "Mommy, what are u doing? why are u so happy?" *LOL*
After sending 2 trays of the plain hazelnut and almond (I ran out of almonds, so I added hazelnuts to it) macs into the oven, I decided to be more adventureous and added green tea powder to the remaining batter. Topped it with white sesame seeds as I din have any black ones at home.

Here's the results of my MONTHS of research and proscrastination.....These chocolate ones tasted just like (i hope!) what a macaroon shd taste (Read somewhere that the surface shd be crisp while the insides are chewy).... I used 62% bittersweet chocolate as the filling.
The green tea ones turned out softer in texture. But I love the pastel colour.... maybe I din add enough green tea powder, the geen tea taste was not distinct. However, I liked these more than the chocolate ones!