Cocoa nib macarons with earl grey ganache

More macarons again. I'm certainly practicing making macarons very frequently nowadays.

Macarons for my nephew's birthday

Amacarano

I've been on a macaron trend the past month, almost baking macarons every weekend for some occasion or another. These were requested by my coffee loving cousin when we had a barbeque session the other day.

Espresso macarons with espresso buttercream and salted caramel

Salted buttered popcorn macarons with salted caramel

Ever since I saw this, it had never left the top of my macaron flavours to-make list. I mean, salted buttered popcorn and salted caramel? Hello? Do I really need to even attempt to persuade you? ;)

Vanilla bean macarons

It's been so long since I last made macarons. This is the first batch of macarons I've made since moving house. And thank gosh they turned out okay.

 Vanilla bean macarons

Chocolate hazelnut feuilletine macarons

I mentioned in my last post that I made lime curd macarons for my girlfriend, I forgot to mention that I also made some chocolate macarons at the same time. Yeah, I like variety and I couldn't imagine just packing a box filled with macarons of the same flavour (don't mind me please, it's just me and one of my weird quirks).

Chocolate hazelnut feuilletine macarons

Lime curd macarons

I got to know a new buddy, who is a sour lover (cheers!) and her birthday falls in the month of May. I decided to make her some macarons for her birthday, and the flavours I then decided to make were quite obvious, isn't it? Something sour.

Lime curd macarons

Matcha chestnut macarons

I had leftover chestnut puree that I had froze when I made the chestnut mont blanc. As I don't like to hoard things in the freezer for too long, I was thinking hard on how to use the chestnut puree...

Matcha macarons with chestnut buttercream

Earl grey macarons

I made some Earl grey macarons a couple weeks back. I used a packet of Earl grey tea bag for the shells, and two packets to soak the cream when making the ganache. Yet, the earl grey flavour wasn't obvious. At all!

Earl grey macarons

Black forest macarons

I had extra egg whites and just a little smidgen of cream leftover from a 1L bottle in the fridge. I hate waste. So I put my brain to good use, and the first thing that came to mind was - ding ding ding, macarons. But what flavour macarons should I make? Tough choice. I had a whole list of potential flavours I wanted to try out. Somehow, I have no idea how, black forest came into mind. I don't really fancy anything black forest-y and it wasn't even on my list of flavours to make! Yet, we had just gone to the wholesale vegetables and fruits place recently and got ourselves lots of fresh fruits - a big box of peaches (20 of 'em!), 4 punnets of strawberries and a 2kg bag of huge-ass cherries. Ah. Cherries. Succulent juicy red cherries that dribble juice down your chin when you bite into the  huge red orbs. Black forest macarons it shall be then.

Black forest macarons

Sadaharu Aoki macarons

The weather this week has been really cold. In fact, with the non-stop rain (okay fine, it stopped. Like for what? A few hours? Before resuming again grr.) that has been going on like for the past three or four days straight, I feel like our sunny island is going to get flooded soon or something. If this goes on again for the next coming few days, I think I'm going to run out of clean underwear and laze-around-at-home clothes to wear (supplies are running seriously low, the Sister suggested re-wearing them. :/) cos our laundry (from three to four days ago) had not been able to dry at all!

Even though I enjoyed the cold weather while studying in Australia, I admit that after being back in Singapore for a year plus, I kinda forget Brisbane's winter temperatures. Though not till the extent of being minus degrees Celcius, it was really cold at night (where I'll avoid turning the heater on too much to save money). And now, sunny rainy Singapore is feeling a little like the winter nights in Brissy. Whereby while using the blowdryer after my shower, I'll aim the airdryer at my feet and to keep them toasty warm (albeit for even a mere few seconds). Which was what I actually did last night. In Singapore. I felt like I was back in Brissy again for that short moment. :/

Anyway. Let's talk about something that makes my innards feel warm and fuzzy - Sadaharu Aoki goodies from Taiwan hand carried back to Singapore by my lovely girlfriend! I saw Evan's tweet that there was Sadaharu Aoki in Taiwan, and I was like all, "whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat, really?". I was that excited cos I knew for one thing, one of my favourite girlfriend was holidaying in Taiwan then, so I immediately texted her and begged her to buy some goodies back for me if possible. And guess what guess what guess what? :)

Sadaharu Aoki goodies from Taipei!

French buttercream for macarons and cupcakes

Oh wow, and it's now the last day of 2010. Thank gosh. I must say that it hasn't been a very good year for me...but oh well, as long as I'm well-fed (too well-fed in fact), healthy, alive, I really shouldn't be mumbling or grousing much...

2010 has been a tremendously busy year for my oven, and sadly, it finally gave up on me (or was it the other way round hmmmm...), so we replaced it with a new one! I must say that I'm falling more and more in love with the new one day by day. It takes only 10 minutes pre heating time (compared to 20-30 minutes for the ol' one!), the temperature is reasonably correct (the ol' wonky one was off by 10 degrees higher!), oh oh oh, new things always seem so much better, shinier and prettier, don't you think so? (:

Coconut mango passionfruit macarons

Madeleines and macarons

Well, here I am again. It's not that I bake every other day, just that it's coming to the end of the year, and I would really really like to clear my backlog so I won't keep having a long list of backlogs that get posted like months later...and I'm proud to say I've clear like pretty much of my backlogs with the frantic postings I do lately. ;) I'm already posting stuff that I've baked in December! *gasp*

Two weeks ago, I baked some macarons and madeleines for the colleagues and packaged them up in small party favour bags. I made - Brown butter cinnamon praline madeleines, chai chocolate macarons and coconut macarons with a mango passion fruit filling. I've decided to split the pictures up in two posts cos I'll be including recipes for some items...

Chai macaron shells with cinnamon chocolate ganache

Merry Christmas...not.

It's Christmas day today. Although it's the season of joy and giving, however, my Christmas this year started out on the wrong foot. I lost my mobile phone just two days ago (an iPhone 3G) while out shopping in town. My girlfriend had asked if I could help her bake some macarons for some Christmas parties that she was attending. I was more than happy to help her out cos my mind was full of reds and greens...

The lovely girlfriend of mine treated me to lunch, I passed her the macs, and then we decided to take a short walk around the mall. My suggestion (it was a mistake). I should have gone home instead of dawdling around.  She left first after accompanying me for a while as she had dinner plans, so I walked around on my own for like ten minutes. After which when I realised my phone was gone. It was either carelessness on my part, or a pickpocket. But either way, my phone was gone. Sigh. It all happened within minutes. I immediately retraced my steps and got a shop employee to help me ring my mobile. It was switched off already. :(

I had to report to security, rushed home to locate the serial number, then head down to the police station to report the loss. Sigh. My dad was furious, so I doubt I'll be getting myself another iPhone soon...And to think I was so dependent on it. I used it for checking mails, tweeting, facebook-ing, the games apps for entertainment and the camera apps for fun's sake. It was even my alarm clock. It's only an object I know, but I really feel a pang of loss for the phone, which I've had for all of say a year? Sigh.

Boxes of macarons

Raspberry rose macarons

Yes I know, yet another macaron post? Groan. I promise this is the last one for the time being. I'm a little sick of macarons myself too. ;)

I was thinking of making dual-coloured macs cos I just find that totally adorable. I'm a dork that way. Anyway, I just realised that this post is so going to be very girly pink. You've been warned.

Raspberry rose macarons

Mogador macarons

As mentioned in my recent macaron post, I first started experimenting with using the Italian method of making macarons for this batch of chocolate passionfruit macarons. After hearing from Allie how easy the Italian method was, I was tempted to try it out cos my latest attempts at macaron making here and here produced less than desired looking shells. I had a list of potential macaron flavours I wanted to make (yes I do have a list specifically for just macarons, in fact I have several lists of "to-makes", categorised accordingly as "Tarts", "Entremets", "Ice-creams", "Panna Cottas"...you get the idea), and the very flavour topping the macarons list was Mogador. So, what should a girl to do, but dive straight into the fray.

Summery Mogador macarons

Farewell macarons

It's the Sis's last day at work today, and we spent the weekend baking macarons for her to give to her colleagues as byebye presents. We made the shells over the weekend and stored them in containers. Then did the fillings over the past two days, and sandwiched them and packed them so she can bring them to work yesterday and today.

Lemon macs with lemon curd filling & Milo macs with Milo buttercream and Valrhona crunchy pearls

Macarons from Tokyo...

I managed to get my hands on Pierre Herme's macarons! Surreal or not. I mean, a few years ago, I would have been all "Pierre Herme" who? But now that I'm slowly morphing into (gasp) a macaron addict, I would have been mad not to have heard of Pierre Herme. Macarons in Tokyo are (gasp again) freakin' madly priced. Then again, it could have been all patisseries in general? These macs cost like S$5 a pop. Almost two and a half times more than the most expensive macs in town...

Matcha macarons

Macarons are sly and finicky creatures. They slowly creep into your life, eventually overtaking it even, and before you know it, from feeling indifferent towards them, you become addicted to them. However, churning out these devious lil things are not 100 per cent fool-proof. Though from my very first attempt, I've mostly encountered success, lately, the macaron baking fairy seemed to have shun me for others.

These stupid matcha flavoured macs? Took me not one, not two but three attempts to see something remotely resembling macs. The first two batches were disasters that looked severely disfigured beyond words, best buried in the deep recess of soon-to-be-forgotten memories (hey, I've got a very short memory span, which works well in such times). I suspected that they failed because the egg whites weren't beaten properly, so for this fortunate third batch, I made sure to whip the whites longer...

And hey yo, they finally passed the visual test (barely), and though they have really flat feet, as least they resemble macs yeah. I was going to seriously cry and stomp my feet if they failed, cos you know, matcha powder is not cheap. Ha.

Matcha macarons with red bean paste filling

Lavender macarons

Lavender. Betcha first thought was a bar of scented soap. Either that or dried petals in a pouch for smelling purposes. Or scented oil for aromatherapy. You get where I'm going right.

Anyways, I'm not here to talk about lavender soaps or whatnots. I'm here to talk about lavender macarons. Yeps. Floral macs. And I'm not referring to the ubiquitous rose flavour. My Sis bought quite a bagful of these dried lavender buds, and since I have no idea what to do with them (since a small spoon is more than enough to perfume anything really), I decided to incorporate them into macarons form.

Lavender macarons

Bakerzin (again) and (again)

I happened to lay my hands on some Bakerzin vouchers when they were having discounts on several of their desserts (six macarons for $6, and promotional prices for their cakes). Within the month, we used the vouchers on two occasions -

Macarons (L to R) - Teh Tarik; Lemon Cheesecake; Blueberry; Whisky; Mango; Sakura