Macarons Again

Now, I am hot on making macarons, my niece has given me encourage to made more....  Yupee, especially when someone really appreciates your bakes and way to go.............

Surf the website and I loved the looks of the macarons  of this particular author, Jill Colonna, mades me wanted to follow her recipes and method and it works, no doubt my bake macarons is a little brown but the texture is good when tasted.  Have a try.

Macaronssssssssssss

A group of friends have been doing macarons using Italian method and it really motivates me in doing it and I did.  I made lemon & chocolate macarons.

I found out that this is not really difficult and it's even easier to handle than the french method.  I did not even aged the eggs and  did not even rest the macarons to let the skin formed.  I liked this method and the first try, I am happy with the result.

 A friend's daughter even tried the italian method through internet learning, no doubt it's has bumpy and rough surface  but it has little feet  at the edge, but it's a good begining for her,  She used star nozzle to pipe.




Recioes:- Sweet Spot's Blog

Chocolate Macaron with Dark Chocolate Ganache

(makes 20-24 macarons)

100g Almond meal
100g icing sugar
20g cocoa powder
36g fresh egg whites (about 1 egg white)
pinch of salt

100g caster sugar
30g water
36g aged egg whites (about 1 egg whites)
1g egg white powder -( I did not add )
Dark Chocolate Ganache

80g Valrhona Guanaja discs
50g cream
15g butter
Pinch of Salt

Method:




1. Make ganache. Put chocolate in a bowl. In a small saucepan, bring cream to a light boil. Pour into chocolate and stir till chocolate has melted. Add in butter and salt and stir till everything is combined. Cover with a cling wrap on top of the surface and leave it to cool.

2. Make macaron. Sift almond meal, icing sugar and cocoa powder in a wide bowl. Add in the egg white and salt and mix well. Do this only when you’re ready to cook the sugar, otherwise it gets hard.
3. In a medium sized pot, pour in caster sugar and water. Bring to a boil and to 118 C. Which means that yes you need a candy thermometer. When the sugar syrup reaches 110 C, in a mixing bowl, whisk egg whites and egg white powder (I’ve tried without it, it’s alright) It should be somewhat medium peaks when the sugar syrup reaches 118 C.
4. While the mixer is still whisking (about medium speed), gradually pour in the sugar syrup. (To wash the pot, add in water and bring to a boil, it’s easier to wash) Then turn up the speed of the mixer for about 2 minutes till it turns glossy. Reduce the speed to medium and let it whisk till it’s stiffer. It should be somewhat stiff, but not so stiff. (Picture on row 3, left)


5. Now, add in 1/4 of the meringue into the almond mixture from step no.1. Whack it till it’s well incorporated. At this first step, I usually literally do it un-TLC-ly just to get some air out from the meringue and to lighten the almond mix.With the remaining 3/4 of meringue, add into the almond mix and fold it in. This time, a little more TLC until it becomes lava like.

6. I’m using a 10mm nozzle. Fit into a piping bag and scoop the batter into the bag. Pipe onto a tray lined with parchment paper or silpat. Lightly tap the tray on a table top. Let it rest for about 10 minutes then bake at 150 C for 14 minutes.
7. When it’s cooked, remove from the oven and let it cool on a rack. Once it’s completely cool, it should be able to peel off easily.

8. Pair the right sizes and arrange them on a tray. Fill with chocolate ganache and let it mature in the fridge and eat the following day (That is if you can resist but trust me, macs definitely need the maturing stage)

Choc Marble Bread

It's was on my wanted list to do,and finally I did it, not very nice in  appearance  but taste great, and I have difficulty in rolling and the chocolate paste keeps oozing out, I just go ahead and braid and decide  not continue to fold and roll again ,inorder not to get too messy.

I did not have a proper size baking tin, need to buy and I will try again.. Next time, I must get a perfect bake, if not perfect, almost perfect also can....:)

I did extra half portion of bread dough for some leftover red bean paste and this dough goes very well with the paste.

Chocolate Marbled Loaf ~ 巧克力大理石吐司 (Recipe from Carol 自在生活), Extract from Cathy Joy's Blog

Chocolate portion:



50g chocolate

20g butter

20g bread flour

10g cocoa powder

5g cornflour

60g milk

20g castor sugar

1 egg white



Method

1. Melt chocolate & butter separately.

2. Sift flour, cocoa powder & cornflour together. Put the flour mixture in a saucepan.

3. Add in milk & sugar into the sifted flour mixture.

4. Add in melted chocolate, butter & egg white.

5. Put the saucepan over the stove on low heat. Using a balloon whisk to stir the mixture until it becomes thick. It will becomes a soft dough.

6. Remove the saucepan from stove. Pour out the chocolate dough onto a cling wrap to cool down.

7. Roll out the chocolate dough into 18cm x 18cm & put in fridge for later use.



Bread dough:



260g bread flour

20g plain flour

1 egg

25g castor sugar

3/4 tsp instead yeast

1/4 tsp salt

125g milk

20g butter



Method

1. Combine all ingredients together (except butter) in a mixer & beat until a dough is formed.

2. Add in butter & beat again until the dough is smooth.

3. Roll out the dough into a square (at least 2x the chocolate dough)

4. Put the chocolate dough on top of the bread dough & wrap it up.

5. Roll out the dough slowly until double of the original.

6. Fold the dough into 1/3 (2 times) & roll out.

7. Repeat step 5 & 6 again.

8. At the final roll out of the dough, divide the dough into 3 strips (but do not cut the dough totally) & do plaiting.

9. Place in a lightly greased loaf tin & proof for an hour.

10. Bake in a preheated oven @ 180C for 30mins.

Chiffon Again!!!

My hubby is complaining that I always made chiffon but not his favourite things... Haiz.... All depends on my mood and now I am crazy over this and it's very easy.  Daughter mention something about eating maple syrup chiffon and she like it... so I try lor......

I surf the net and found one common blogger and I tried and don't like like the chiffon and we found that the cake was not light and dry.  Told my friend, Sharon, and she help me to surf the net, I always surf english version and she always surf the chinese, I am no good in chinese and I don't like to read.  I realise when surfing the chinese website which has recipe from China and Taiwan bloggers and there's is a lot of variations for maple syrup chiffon.

I select and choose from this website, and the chiffon is really soft and fragant and not so sweet and I loved it. We had for breakfast.  No regrets and the recipe is a keeper for me.

3 Egg Yolks
50gm Maple Syrup
50gm Fresh Milk
30gm Oil
85gm Flour
A Pinch of Salt

4 Egg White
20gm Sugar
30gm Maple Syrup

1. Whisk egg yolk for a while, add in maple syrup,fresh milk and oil, salt, mix well.
2. Add in flour and stir till smooth.
3. Whisk Egg white till frothy, add in 1/3 of sugar and maple syrup Whisk and repeat adding sugar and maple syrup till almost firm peak.
4. Fold 1/3 of egg white batter into the egg yolk flour batter, repeat till finish and pour into 17cm chiffn mould.
5. Bake at 170 degrees for about half an hr

Honey sweet potato..

Went NTUC supermarket, saw that they are selling honey sweet potato from indonesia, just have to try and have been keen on baking sweet potato chiffon as well.. at least I am trying to kill 2 birds at one stone and here I am and did it.

When the chiffon is baking, the room was filled with sweet potato fragance and I loved it. I baked using the same chiffon book recipe and the book is really good, it's just too bad is out of publication and on the internet you only can get partial recipe of the book.

My collegue tasted the chiffon and she say it's was fragant and soft and y brother was saying that he was my guinea pig... ha! ha!...

Out of Publication

Have heard of this book and has been searching locally and international, check with bookstores in Taiwan and was out of publication... what a pity... Just have to do with some internet searching and some of the bloggers have been using these books and their chiffons are great.  It a must to try, and  true enough the recipe works, my first try and don't know what I did, it just drop off from the tin, my friend say could be underbake.

With a never die attitude, I did it again and this is what I get. I like the taste and it is full of banana fragrance if you like the fruit and you don't even have to add in banana essence, I just put some vanilla essence juz in case there is some eggy smell.

Recipe extract from GraceKitcheCorner if you want to tryhttp://gracekitchencorner.blogspot.sg/2009/07/banana-chiffon.html

Recipe for 21cm round chiffon pan:

For the egg whites mixture: 180g egg whites / 110g caster sugar / 10g corn flour/ 140g chopped banana (in snall chunk)

For the egg yolks mixture: 70g egg yolks / 30g water / 70g vegetable oil or olive oil / 90g mashed banana / 70g plain flour

How I made it:

1. Mix all the egg yolks mixture except flour. When everything well combined then add in sifted flour (I used electric mixer, its came very handy for this process). Mix everything well combine and no lumps left. The mixture would be very thick and smooth. Gently mix in the chunky banana.
2. Beat the egg whites in a clean large bowl until peak foam. Gradually add in sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Then finally add in corn flour. Make sure the corn flour mix well in the egg mixture (Using an electric mixer would be great!). The egg whites mixture should be peak foam, smooth and shiny.
3. Gently fold in 1/3 of the egg whites mixture into the egg yolks mixture. When everything well combine then gently fold in the 1/2 of the remaining egg whites mixture. Lastly, fold in the remaining egg whites mixture. (Note: This stage took some times and patient and practice. Make sure all the egg whites mixture well combine with the egg yolks mixture without breaking the egg whites. Little egg whites left will cause a big hole in the cake during baking. And, over mixing will cause it hardly rise during the baking.)
4. Pour the well mix mixture into a 21cm chiffon cake tin and bake at a 160-170'C preheated oven for 40 - 50 minutes. After baked, let the baked cake turn upside down for cooling before unmold it.
5. Unmold the cake, keep the cake in the fridge it could last for 5 - 6 days. Best serve in 3 days.

A gadget must have.....

This moment, when I was using this gadget, I loved it beacause first of all the thickness of the layer can be adjusted and it has given me a neat cut on the layers of my sponge cake.

It was a present from my friend, Sharon who has bought from Taobao,  Thanks Sharon.  When I first received it, I was quite skeptical about it, all long, I have been using 2 steel bars to help in slicing the cake.