Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Well, my buddies and I, we were supposed to have a Halloween themed party. We planned that like a month ago. I know, we work fast. We were going all out for it - a full orange and black party with our food and decorations all centred around the party colours. Anyway, just a few days before the party, one of the mates then stated that he can't make it as he's bogged down with school work. We were all pretty bummed and the remaining four of us then decided to scrap the party and just do a potluck instead. Then the very next day, somehow or rather, I don't know how, but the party was back on. We say onward - who cares about the $^$#%&%#!# who decided to jump plane (okay, kiddin' in case that bugger reads this...you know you'll be missed by us! Haha.)

So, I was in charge of caramel apples, pizza muffin-lets and drinks. As it was only the four of us, we didn't want to prepare too much food (like we always do) and stuff ourselves silly trying to finish the food. So it's mini everything! At least in my case. I decided to make a little extra pumpkin tartlets (more on it when I post about the party pictures!) and some mini chocolate muffins I happened to bake the day before.

I'm going to talk about the exciting part in this post - caramel apples! And this is actually a post-on-the-actual-day-I-bake entry (what a rare case ;) indeed.)

Homemade chewy caramel candies

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

Gattopardo

Gattopardo is situated at Hotel Fort Canning, not quite exactly a very crowded place to head to for a weekend lunch. We made reservations at the restaurant, but when we arrived, there were only a handful of tables that were taken. It probably didn't help the restaurant, but it was drizzling that Saturday afternoon, and also, renovations were taking place and construction workers were working to make the place ready for the opening of the hotel.

Gattopardo

Caramelised onions and triple mushroom quiches

With all that macaron baking I've been doing, I had some cream leftover from making ganache. I was wondering what to do with them, when I suddenly thought of quiches. They would make a great lunch idea and thus, I happily scoured my lists of "to-bakes" for inspiration. I was drawn to a quiche crust recipe made wholly from whole wheat flour (I substituted with wholemeal), and prepared the dough the night before.

Caramelised onions and triple mushrooms quiches

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