Macarons - A love hate relationship

Nutells Macarons

Macarons oh macarons... I have my fair share of the temperamental macarons... It is so complicated to make them. First you need to be exact in your measurements. Then you need to grind the almond meal and icing sugar to make them finer. After which you need to sieve them to prevent any lumps. Any big pieces are also not allowed: the macarons will look grainy... That is not all, when you fold the egg whites, you must fold till an exact consistency; too little folds and the batter will be too thick to work with, too many folds and the batter will be too watery and will spread too much giving a flat macaron shells.

My macaron journey started last year when I thought my baking skills was good enough to try something more complex and tested my baking skills to another level. Gosh. I think I exhausted like a few kg of almond meal and icing sugar, at least 100 eggs wasted. And the results: my confirmation that this macarons are really a pain in a ass that is as temperamental as a woman’s emotion.. Seriously, the number of times I succeeded can be counted using my fingers. But I made like 50+ times.. You could imagine how many times I failed badly.

Anyway, enough of me ranting. I must say the moment I succeeded a few times consequitively, it was when I felt such great achievement! I must warn you that there is no gain without pain... You need determination and patience when making macarons.. You really need to "sayang" these temperamental pastries. For this round, I made Red Velvet Macarons with Cream Cheese. For those who love red velvet cupcakes/cakes, you will love this recipe.


For the ingredients (for 30 macarons)

To make the macarons shells

• 120g almond meal
• 200g icing sugar
• 50g sugar (as fine as you can find)
• 100g egg whites
• Red food colouring paste

To make the cream cheese filling:

• 1 pkt Philadelphia cream cheese, room temperature
• 115g unsalted butter, room temperature
• 210g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

For the macaron shells

The batter should spread after piping an inch.

1. Lay 3 baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside
2. Combine the icing sugar and the almond meal together and place the dry mixture into the food processor to grind the mixture finer. Use the pulse setting for a good minute of so. Shift the dry mixture and grind further for those that cannot be shifted. Set aside
3. Using the whisk attachment, at low speed, whisk the egg whites till foamy. Add in the granulated sugar. Start whisking at medium to medium high speed. When the egg whites are whisked till stiff peaks, add in the red food colouring. 
4. Fold in the dry mixture into the egg whites. Mix well and until the mixture becomes shiny and a magma consistency. 
5. With a piping bag and a 0.5inch piping tip, transfer the batter into the prepared piping tip. Pipe the batter onto the baking sheet an inch wide. Keep each macaron shell an inch apart. After piping, tap the baking sheet onto the table until the 'nipples' on the macaron shells disappear. You will see the batter spreading a bit. This is normal. Set aside the batter to dry for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 150C.
6. Once the surface of the batter has dried up, place the batter into the oven and bake for 15-17min depending on size of the macaron shells.
7. Wait for the shells to cool slightly before removing them from the parchment paper.
8. Pair up the macaron shells according to their sizes.

For the filling:

1. In a mixing bowl, mixed the butter and cream cheese until pale and smooth, Add in the vanilla extract. Mix well
2. Slowly add in the icing sugar and mix till the correct consistency.
3. Bag the filling into a piping bag with a 0.5inch piping tip.

Finale:

1. Pipe in the filling into the macaron shells and sandwich it like a hamburger.
2. Place the macarons in an airtight container and refrigerate it for 24h before serving.

Mini hamburger  😍

Note:

1. You need to use a metal or glass bowl when whisking the egg whites and the bowl must be oil free. Any oil residue will compromise the whisking of the egg whites. That is why you cannot use plastic bowl as there is always a layer of oil residue no matter how u clean it.
2. Food colouring paste is preferred to liquid version as too much liquid can affect the outcome of the macaron shells. Also. Macarons do not really work well with light colouring. You need to use more colouring as the colour will become lighter after you bake.
3. To know whether you macaron shell batter is dry, using your finger and gently touch the side of the batter. A dry batter will not stick onto your finger. If the surface of the batter is not dried up sufficiently, the macaron shells will crack and be footless when baked.
4. Macarons taste best after 24h of making. This is supposedly coz the macaron shells will absorb the moisture from the filling and becomes soft inside while the exterior portion is still relatively hard.

Must have some photos of people eating the macarons.

花生鸡爪炖汤

Recently Drama Mama has been into cooking food for the family and I have made it a point to cook every Saturday... There will definitely be a soup cos I like soup a lot!!!!

Decided to share chicken feet with peanut soup (花生鸡爪炖汤) because I think it is the easiest to prepare among all the soup I made. No need to chop, de-seed, peel skin, etc etc.. In fact, all you need is to cut nails.. Sounds funny eh.. hahah

For the Ingredients: (Feed 6pax easily)

1. 1.5 Cup of Peanut
2. 15 Chicken Feet
3. 1 Big Bone
4. Dried Squid
5. A few Red Dates (红枣) & Honey Dates (蜜枣)
6. Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions 

• Soak the peanuts for at least an hour. 
• In a small pot of water, boil the big bone for a good 30-40min to remove the greyish stuff from the bone. If not, the soup will look dirty.
• Cut away the nails of the feet (You would not want to have something pricking you when you are drinking the soup)
• In a big pot, add in around 1.5l water, bring it to a boil. After that, add in the big bone and peanuts. Give it a boil for 25 minutes. 
• Add in the rest of the ingredients. Boil over high heat for 20 minutes. Then bring it down to a low heat for around 45 minutes or until the peanuts become soft. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Hey feety feet... 

 Apparently this soup is super good for women... It contains high amount of collagen (Both the chicken feet and the big bone contain collagen). And we Chinese has a saying, where we need to nourish, we eat that part. Like if you need to strengthen your legs you eat animal legs. So I guess chicken leg soup is good for strengthening our legs. dunno how true that is though.

Nutritious bowl of Chicken Feet with peanut soup

Soups are easy to make... And good for the soup... I'm going to make more soup ;D

Rosemary Garlic Focaccia - Bread Bread Bread.. My never ending fascination with them

This is just the start of my addictions :)

Bread bread bread.. I have been so fascinated with them… you really get great satisfaction when your bread comes out fresh from the oven. Wells, at least I do… And the smell of the bread fresh from the oven is just so amazing. You would think your house has instantly turned into a bakery. Amazing amazing.. You might have seen my post on sandwich loaf bread. If not, go check it out. The next bread I went to try out is Focaccia. I am always clearing the focaccia in Italian restaurant. You have been to Italian restaurant like Modesto’s, you would have realise that they provide free flow of focaccia FOC!!! (Haha. I’m not that cheapo la.) You must dip your focaccia bread in balsamic vinaigrette. The taste is just fabulous. Carb overload!!!

My fave: Dipping Focaccia bread into Balsamic Vinaigrette

 Apparently focaccia and pizza crust share the same dough. The different with pizza and focaccia is that pizza has the topping covering majority the dough while the dough in focaccia is amply visible. Another major difference is the height of the dough. Focaccia is way thicker than pizza crust.

For this recipe, I made herb oil. Very simple to do.. You just need a few herbs of your choice (fresh or dry also can), garlic, salt and olive oil. Infused the garlic and the herb for a couple of hours and ta-da, your very own herb oil. Good to make focaccia and used it as a dip together with balsamic vinegar.

I made my recipe with fresh rosemary and whole garlic, but there is no stopping your creativity… You can put in caramelized onion, meat and cheese. Basically anything you like.  

For The Ingredients (Feed 8-10 pax)

For the Dough:

• 475g Bread Flour
• 11g Salt
• 4g Instant Yeast
• 275g Luke Warm Water
• 1 Tb Herb Oil

For the Topping:

• 2-3 Sprigs Rosemary (more if you prefer)
• 6 garlic cloves
• 2 Tb Herb Oil

Directions

1. Mixed the dry ingredients (#1-3) well in a large mixing bowl. Add in the lukewarm water into the dry ingredients. Knead gently (I used kitchen aid speed 2) until combine. Add in the herb oil and knead for another 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and not sticky
2. Spread some oil on a large mixing bowl. Form the dough into a ball and place the dough into the oiled bowl. Spread some oil on the dough to prevent drying of the dough. Cover the mixing bowl with towel or cling wrap for 45 minutes or until double.
3. Once doubled in size, pour the dough onto an oiled rectangular sheet pan and using your Spread the rosemary, washed garlic (w/ skin) and herb oil. Use your fingers to dimple the toppings into the dough.
4. Let the dough rest and rise for around 30-40 minutes or until double in size. Preheat the oven to 260^oC (or max temp) during this time.
5. Once the dough is ready to be baked, sprinkle more herb oil on the top of the dough. Baked for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown in colour. 

Yum Yum.. This bread can easily feed 8 pax for starters

Look at the bread.. Don't you just want to bite into the piece.. 

Life is about enjoying good food.. We shall diet tomorrow.. :D

xoxo
Drama Mama

Wholemeal Sandwich Loaf (汤种 mehod)

It has been so long since I blogged. Too many changes in Drama Mama's life. First I changed job.. Then went to a new company where the laptop is so bulky. Drama Mama is so used to carrying x-series think pad that when she had to carry a T series it is like  boulder to bring home. As such, with no laptop at home, I was not able to blog like I used to.. I no personal laptop.. Multi-functional ma - this is what I call work-life integration.. Anyway, long story cut short, no laptop at home means cannot update my blog... Aiya.. Finally got a laptop now.. :) Can start updating my blog... Wah.. Suddenly I got so many recipe to share with you guys.. Many a times, I happily ate without taking photo.. So smart of me hor..

But nonetheless, I still manage to capture some photos that I can share with all of you :) Let me start with something that I have been trying for many many months ~ plain-o-bread!

Don't know what strike me one day but I decided to make bread. I tried some recipe from allrecipes.com and the bread turned out to be stone! Rock hard stone! It was horrendous.

Can you believe it. I made 2 loaves of hard rock. It did not rise as expected.  OMG!!

Look how short the bread is. 

After that bad experience, I went to search for a method to bake soft bread - those that you can get from Gardenia.. Finally I found this method called Tangzhong (汤种). Basically it is to add in a sponge like starter to your dough. This supposedly made the bread soft and fluffy. Tangzhong is made from cooking 1 part flour with 5 parts water/milk/both till it becomes thick and starchy. I quite like the results, but because I am new with bread making, I am still experimenting with what they call the baker's percentage (wells, that is for another blog altogether on what is baker's percentage.. haha keep you all in suspense.)

Wells here goes the recipe:

For the Tangzhong:

Ingredients (Enough for 1 loaf of bread):

• 25g of Bread Flour 
• 125ml of water / water-milk mixture / milk

Directions:

1. Mix the bread flour into the liquid. Stir till there is no clumps
2. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and cook under medium heat. Stir constantly from preventing the mixture from being burnt. 
3. The tangzhong is ready when you see the mixture thicken and you can draw circles and the circles stay on the saucepan. (i.e. the mixture is not fluid enough to flow back) 
4. Scoop the tangzhong and let it cool till room temperature before you can use to make your bread.

For the Sandwich Loaf: (Adapted from Christine's Whole meal Bread)

(Makes 1 loaf)

Ingredients:

• 180g Bread flour
• 170g Wholemeal flour
• 6g instant yeast 
• 5g salt
• 40g sugar
• 110g milk
• 100g tangzhong (1 serving of the tangzhong made earlier)
• 1 large egg
• 40g butter, at room temperature

Directions:

1. Mix the first 5 ingredients together. Whisk the dry ingredients evenly. Set aside
2. In another mixing bowl, whisk the milk, tangzhong & egg till combine. 
3. In your stand mixer with dough attachment, combine the dry and wet ingredients together and slowly mix it. (I kept my at level 1-2)
4. When all the mixture have combine to form a sticky dough, add in the butter and increase the speed of the mixer a level. Let it mixed for about 10 min until the dough is smooth and not sticky. Slightly oil a mixing bowl. Form the dough into a ball shape and place it on the oiled mixing bowl. Add some oil to the surface of your dough to prevent it from drying. Loosely wrap the bowl with cling wrap / wet towel and place it in somewhere warm and draft free. Let the dough proof for 40min or until double it size. 
5. Once the dough has double in size, punch the dough a few times to get rid of excess carbon dioxide trap in the dough. Cut the dough into 3 equal size and roll them into small balls. Let the dough 'rests' for 15min.
6. Roll each of the balls into rectangular shape, at the shorter side, roll up the dough (like kitchen roll) and place it into the loaf pan. Continue for the other 2 balls. Let it proof for another 35min or until 90% filled on the loaf pan. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 170C.
7. Bake the dough for 30-35min or until the bottom sounds hollow. You can add melted butter on the baked bread straight out from the oven for a softer crust. 

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY ROUNDS OF BAKING THIS BREAD BEFORE I DARE TO SHOW YOU GUYS!!! I keep making and forcing my family and friends to eat them.. Did not want to waste them, but in the end I still had to throw like a couple batches cos they are just inedible. hahaha..

Finally something decent to show you guys

The bread is so soft, just that it did not rise as much as I would hope it would. 

Look how soft and fluffy the bread is :)

I think I am liking the process of bread making. Most likely this will be the first of many posts on bread ;) hahah.. 

Cheesy Bak Kwa Cookie

Do you have this problem: After the whole CNY is over, you still have a lot of CNY goodies left behind.  You get a bit sick of eating them cos that is what you have been eating the whole of CNY at every house you go visit. I know I do.. I still have a pile of CNY goodies at home waiting for me to pound some calories into my body.. And most of them were not even bought by us, they were given by friends and relatives just like most of us. After a while, the goodies are not as tasting as it was in the start of CNY. 

One Sunday, I looked at the bak kwa that was still lying on my table screaming to eat me. I decided to bake it instead. Then I remembered about the Bacon Parmesan Cookies I made the last time, and I thought to myself, what if I used bak kwa instead of bacon? What will the taste be like? So I went ahead to bake them..

Bak Kwa with cheese cookie.. What y'all think about it?

Ingredients (Makes about 90 cookies)

1. ½ cup of Unsalted Butter at room temperature
2. ¾ cup of Shredded Parmiggiano Reggiano
3. 1 Tbsp of Raw Sugar
4. 2 Eggs
5. 3 bak kwa diced into small squares
6. 1 ¼ cups of All Purpose Flour
7. ½ tsp of Baking Soda
8. ½ Tsp of Baking Powder
9. ¼ Tsp of Salt

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 190C and place some parchment paper on a couple baking sheets, set aside
2. In a small bowl, combine together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside
3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, parmigginao regginano and brown sugar. Add the eggs and mix until you have a creamy mixture
4. Add the dry mixture and mix to combine. Fold in the bak kwa bits.
5. Using a cookie scoop, drop the cookies on the parchment line baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 14 minute or until golden brown
6. Cool for 5 min and serve warm. 

Picture of the cookies right after it is out of the over.. Piping hot!!

Nice?

Packed and ready to be eaten :)

I realise that it is better if you serve them warm then let it cool completely. The melted cheese in the warm cookie has a great aroma and soft texture. I left it overnight and took a bite cold, the cookie just did not taste as nice as it was when it was first out of the oven. 

Hope you like this cookie. Happy CNY :D

Vanilla Cupcake with Vanilla bean frosting - A very blue shower..

My cousin gave birth to a lil boy whom she calls Dylan. Ain't he a handsome boy?!?

 


For his one month old celebration, I made him cupcakes...

I thought it is a nice simple design

Nice right? 

Pineapple Tarts - My Chinese New Year Challenge

It's the time of the year where we start piling up with CNY goodies - either bought by ourselves or received as a gift from friends and relatives. 

I tried Pineapple tarts last year.. It turned out to be nice to see but nothing fantastic to eat.. 中看不中用... There was no pineapple jam at all.. hahaha.. I think I put like 1g of pineapple jam... My cousin was like.. "eh, where's the pineapple? Shouldn't pineapple tart has pineapple?" Hahah.. Too bad.. 

Looks not bad, right? 

This year, I decided to make another batch of pineapple tart.. Finally I think I made it.. Woohoo! I made like a good ~300 in total.. Nearly fainted.. I used 8 pineapples, tons of butter.. Most importantly, I think the rolling of the pineapple jam to the balls is so freakingtedious.. hahah.. Still not enough.. Manage to pack 7 container worth of pineapple tarts. (the remaining I gave out for others to sample). Apparently, I did not baked enough for myself to keep.  But nonetheless I think it was a amazing experience. Maybe I need to bake more next year.. hahah.. 

Closed Pineapple tart

Ingredients:

Pineapple Jam:

1. 3 Pineapples (Preferably Raw ones)
2. 4 pieces Cinnamon (around 5cm each)
3. 1 teaspoon Cloves 
4. ~2 Cup Sugar (It really depends on how sweet is your pineapple to begin with)

Pastry Dough (from The Little Teochew)

1. 400g plain flour
2. 50g corn flour
3. 1/4 (heaped) tsp salt
4. 6 tbsp icing sugar (according to The Little Teochew, it is for the melt in your mouth experience)
5. 300g cold, unsalted butter (do not allow it to soften)
6. 3 egg yolks, beaten
7. 3 tbsp cold water (or iced water)
8. 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
9. For glaze, mix 1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp water

Directions: 

For the pineapple Jam:

1. Remove the skin on the pineapple if you haven't. (I got mine removed by the fruit seller, so no issue here). Cut it into small blocks to put it into the blender. After which, drain off at least half the water away
2. In a wok/pot, add in the pineapple puree, cinnamon, cloves and start stirring constantly under medium to medium high heat. And I do mean constantly because the pineapple will bubble and spurt everywhere when it gained enough heat. Painful! 
3. Slow add in sugar. I suggest putting in 1/2 cup by a time so that it will not be too sweet. Always sample your jam before moving on to the next 1/2 cup of sugar. Stop once you find the sweetness to your liking.
4. Continue stirring until you get a thick and sticky consistency. You need to factor in at high heat the jam will be more fluid. You need a dry looking jam at the end. 
5. Cool the jam (I cooled mine overnight) and roll you jam into balls at 7g each.

For the tart: (~ 90 tarts)

1. Mix the first 4 dry ingredients together. Set aside
2. Cut the cold butter into small cubes. 
3. Using 2 forks, mix the butter and dry ingredients until the butter and flour mixture form small crumbs. 
4. Beat the egg yolks, vanilla extract and cold water together. Slowly pour the wet mixture into the flour/butter mixture. ONLY using your fingertips, gently combine them together with minimum kneading. (You do not want the butter to melt because of your body temperature). Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes in the fridge before use. 

Combining to make the pineapple tart: 

1. Preheat over to 160C. Line parchment paper on the baking sheet. 
2. Roll the dough to about 8mm thick. Using a tart mold, cut out the tart shell and arrange it on the baking sheet.
3. Place the pre-rolled jam onto the tart shell. Glaze it with egg yoke wash. Place it into the oven and baked for 20-25 min until the shells become golden in color. 

My dreamy looking Pineapple Tart (with photo edit)

Nice right? Decide to upload this pic again in another light haha.. 

My dad keep saying that is a lot of jam.. What y'all think?

All the hardwork paid off when my relatives all said that my pineapple tarts tasted awesome.. Some find it a bit sweet though.. haha.. Hard to please all.. Sweet good ma.. 甜甜蜜蜜

To end it all.. Happy Chinese New Year to ALL.. 新年快乐、万事如意、蛇年行大运！huat-ah