Chocolate Macarons with White chocolate ganache filling !

 

Finally I too went for it..it took a while for me to make up my mind to try this daring Baker's challenge. I have been admiring this little cuities in other blogs for a while,especially in Shabs cuisine ! Her wonderful clicks of these cuties gave me all the inspiration to try it out and I couldn't wait for a   better time  than this time of the year ! The recipe for Mac shell  is adapted from Shabs space and if you follow her blog word by word, I guess nothing could go wrong ! Do check out her space for a  collection of Macaron recipes.

 

 

 

 

Ingredients

Egg whites(Aged) - 58g

Ground Almond - 65 g

Cocoa Powder- 20 g

Icing Sugar - 100g

Caster sugar - 20g

 

Method

 

1.In a squeaky clean bowl weigh the egg weights and age them on the kitchen counter for 24 hr-48 hr or upto 5 days in the fridge covering it with a cling film.

2.Weigh out Ground almonds,cocoa powder,icing sugar and mix them together in a bowl and powder them in a coffee grinder/ mixie until it is flour like.Seive them 1-2 times and discard any big lumps .

3.Start beating the egg whites starting with a medium speed and gradually increasing it to maximum.

4.When it starts to form Soft peaks add caster sugar and beat until stiff peaks are formed and please make sure you dont over beat .

5.Now add the dry ingredients in 2-3 additons to the meringue mixture and fold in gently with a flexible spatula or wooden spoon  until it reaches a shiny batter consistency which falls of like a ribbon( I recommend watching some youtube videos before you try this out ).Donot over mix too !

6.Transfer it into a piping bag with a round tip placed on a tall glass to ease your filling job !

7. Line your baking tray with baking paper and pipe a 2cm diameter  circles leaving enough space between them.

8.Allow it to dry for 1- 2 hours maybe more if it is humid .

10.Bake them in a preheated oven at 150 degree celcius to 13 -14 minutes( Each oven is different,so adjust the timing according to your oven )

11.Allow it cool down for 30 mins - 1 hour and peel them from the baking paper.

12.Pipe the filling on to the shells and sandwich the  shells together and allow them to mature in the fridge for a day or  two !

 

To make white Ganache filling

 

Double cream - 100ml

White chocolate - 100gms

Vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp

 

Method

In  a pan simmer the double cream and when it starts to bubble,turn of the heat and add the chocolate,once the chocolate has melted add vanilla extract and give it a good mix and allow it to cool down until it can be piped on to the Mac shells to sandwich them.

 

 

Princess Cake and pink cake pops and few tips on how I made it !

Making a girly cake especially a Princess one was a dream for me since a long time and finally I got lucky when my friend asked me whether I can bake one for her daughter who likes to be Princess :) The birthday girl was obssessed with Pink colour so she wanted every thing on the cake be pink and so I made everything pink and I even made the cake pops pink too.I went to the party too and everyone loved my cake which made my day.

 

 

 

Once I started decorating everything looked complicated and I didnt have any idea how the cake was going to come out so I didnt take any step by step clicks..but to give u all an idea I clicked the pictures of the bakewares which I used to get the shape of the Princess Dress.

 

 

 

 In the picture above can you all the intersection between  two bowls ??  I had to cut that portion from the cake which I baked in that bowl and  also  the from the  bowl above as well(which is not visible as the top bowl  is not transparent ) to place the cake layers .The cake was a 4 layered Red velvet cake with Cream cheese frosting which I have posted earlier .Once I decorated the Dress I covered the dolls body in fondant and inserted into the cake ,but if you dont have that you can actually insert a doll wrapped in some cling film and all you need to do is with a circle cutter cut a round cirlce from middle of each layer and insert the doll  inside the cake !

 

CAKE POPS

 

U will need..

 

Cake - 8 inch cake

Icing - 1 cup

Candymelts / Cooking chocolate

Lolly pop Sticks

 

1.To make cake pops bake  a single layer of  8 inch   fluffy cake,I reccomend my victorain sponge cake or you can use box mixes too.Once the cake has cool down break the cake into crumbs. Make sure there is no big lumps.

2.Make 1 cup of ur favourite frosting or use readymade frosting.

3.Mix the cake with frosting and mix well until u can roll into cake balls like the picture below.

 

 

4.Melt the candymelts as per package instructions or melt the chocolate and keep aside.

5.Dip the lolly pop stick in the melted chocolate /candymelts and insert it to the cake balls.

6.Dip the cake ball  stick into the melted candy melts and please  be careful not to drop the ball into the candymelts..

7.Finally  decorate the cake pops as u like.



 



Chocolate Crinkles ( Snow Caps )

 

How is the Christmas preparation going on ?? Well at  my side, I am super busy baking these days...I have to gift  my friends and teachers of  lil A nursery something and I couldnt think of anything other than home baked goodies...I wanted to gift something which looked beautiful and thats why I choose this Chocolate crinkles  which I had bookmarked from Nisha's space long time ago. Baked 2 batches of it yesterday and already  gifted two bags of it, one bag for a friend who is flying away for Christmas and one  for my neighbour who is  expecting a baby for Christmas ! I did save some for us before giving away everything and we all loved it :) Thanks to Nisha for sharing this fools proof recipe !

 

Ingredients (makes around 25 cookies)

 

Plain flour - 1/2 cup

Baking powder - 1/2 tsp

Dark Chocolate(good quality ) -1/2 cup

Brown sugar tightly packed - 1/2 cup (if u add less sugar  cookies  will be bitter )

Egg -1

Oil - 2 1/2 tbs

Vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp

Icing sugar - As required

Method

 

1.In a heatproof bowl add chocolate and melt it over a hot simmering pan of water.

2.Remove from heat and add sugar and stir it until it is dissolved slightly.

3.Add oil,egg,vanilla extract and give it a good mix.

4.Finally add flour - baking powder and mix again.

5.Cover it with a ling film and chill it fir 2 hours.

6.Take 1/2 tbs of cookie dough and roll into small  balls.

7.In a plate take  icing sugar and roll the cookie bals to give  a nice coating of icing sugar.Once u finish coating the balls give a quick coating to the balls which u coated first as they might have absorbed the icing sugar u coated earlier.

8.Place them in baking tray few inches apart and bake at 175 degree celcius for 13 minutes.

Korean Sushi (kimbap)

Two of my close friends here are from Korea and one of my friend's hubby is  chef in a Korean Restaurant  ! I was very lucky to have a friend whose hubby is a chef, many times when  her hubby used come back from work he always brought  the  restaurant food  for their dinner and if I am with her during that time he gives a share of the food to me too and I was lucky several times ! Thats how my love for  Korean food started :)

Korean Sushi was one of my favourite among them and my friends tought me how to make that at home, my friend even bought me a roasted sea weed sheets for me to try sushi at home,she even offered to come home and show me how to make it, but before she could comeover I decided to try it myself and I was very happy with the result. So here is a recipe from my friend Mijong :)

Ingredients

Cooked sushi rice - 2 cup
Korean Fish cake - 2
Carrot - 2 nos
Cucumber - 1/2 of a cucumber
Egg - 1
Sesame seeds - 2 tbs
Sesamae oil - 2 tbs
Roasted seaweed sheets - 3-5

Method

 

1. Cut carrot and cucmber to long thin  slices.

2.Make and omlette in a pan adding little salt and pepper and cut into stripes.

3.Fry the fish cake according to package instructions and make into  stripes .

4.Mix the cooked rice with little salt,sesame seeds and seasame oil.

5.Place the seaweed sheets on a bamboo mat ( I didn't have that,so I used kitchen foil) and spread the cooked rice as shown in the picture and make sure you leave some space in the other end of the seaweed sheet.

6.Place the fillings on top of the cooked rice as shown in the picture.

7. Roll it tightly with a bamboo mat and stick the end with some cooked rice.

8. With a sharp knife cut the rolls and serve it with some soy sauce.

Pirate Pizza

Lil A's nursery has a lots of cooking activities for children every term and this term they were learning all about Pirates. To make the topic more interesting they planned to do some cooking activities with the same theme too.Pirate boat sandwiches and Pirate pizza was the two things they choose.The teachers then asked the parents who are keen to cook to come forward.I have done cooking with them before and loved it,so decided to go this time too..but this time the things they choose was not easy as I did before. There are 20 kids in his class and making them roll the dough spread the pizza sauce ,sprinkle cheese and keep the toppings like this and then baking  20 pizzas in was impossible in 3 hours,so I decided to buy the readymade mini tomato pizzas and then just make them  do the toppings and then bake it. I did spend 2 hours in my kitchen that morning getting all the toppings chopped and ready for them,thinking that i will finish it way before the 3 hour target,oh boy I was wrong. I carried the pizzas and toppings to nursery that day and started calling the kids one by one .Initially they were all so eager to do the toppings but after a while some of them got bored,they wanted to go and play and some of them were fussy about the toppings ,they said they dont want tomatoes  or olives in their pizza !! Somehow convinced them that if they dont put those their pizza wont look like pirate.By the time i finished toppings and baking them it was nearly 3 and had only 30 minutes to pack the pizzas for them to take home and then to clean the mess ...phew it was quite hectic ! I cant imagine what would have happened if I took the pizza dough and sauce and made them roll their pizzas too..then only half of them would have got their pizzas on time :)

 

Ingredients

 

Cheese and toamto Pizza - 1

Cherry tomatoes - 6 nos(sliced into half )

Red pepper

Beetroot

Parnsnip

Olives

 

Method

 

1.Make the scarf  of the pirate with cherry tomatoes.

2.For eyes I used  Parnsnip and olives

3.For eye patch I used beetroot

4.For nose I used Cheery tomato

5.For moustache and mouth  I used beetroot .

6. For Beard I used olives

7.Finally for the scarfs tie I used redpepper/Capsicum

8. Baked them at a prehaeted oven at 200 degrre centigrade for 10 minutes !

 

Thomas Train Birthday Cake with few step by step click pics !

 

It was my lil boy's dear friend's birthday party this weekend and I was asked to make the birthday cake. Birthday boy was always into Thomas train so choosing a theme for the cake was easy,but the biggest challenge was making Thomas with fondant. I was not sure how it would turn out ,but still I clicked   step by step pics to share with u all ,but unfortunately  I could only  click the first few stages of it. By the time I finished 3/4 th of it , it was time for me to pick lil A from nursery and after that I was busy with other things and could finish the rest only in the night ,but its not that complicated  ,only the face was a bit of a challenge, especially when u make a small figurine getting the face right is  bit tough, I tried it 2 times and got satisfied only at my 3 rd ttempt, still not completely happy with the face though !

  I wanted to create a Spring time look on the cake with greenery and flowers. In Thomas and his friends series ,Thomas the tank engine always goes through scenic routes resembling a  typical english country side,thats how  sheep came on the cake and then  tunnels was always an obvious thing for train sets .So with all these things in mind I drew a sketch. In the sketch I had few extra things which I didnt put on the cake. Since it was spring I wanted a baby lamb  and a mummy sheep as the babies are born during spring time. The other thing was  a fence to divide the track and field. I even made the mummy sheep and fence but the cake was looking a bot overcrowded with all those things so I decided not to use it .

 

The train, small tree and the sheep were  made with  fondant with pinch of CMC and the tunnel was made with rice krispy treats.The cake was again a Vanilla cake with Swiss meringnue buutercream which was a hit in the party !

Birthday Cake with Edible Handmade Wine Bottle, Books and Cheese !

I made this cake for my friends Pappa. My friend wanted a personalised cake for him to make his birthday really special, so she wanted a cake with  stuffs  that he loves ( Wine bottle,books and cheese ). I started doing home home work, thinking about the different options..First option  was to make 3 D cake,making all the those stuffs with cake which I knew was a big challenge and I was not even sure how it would turn out,other plan was to keep it simple by making a sheet cake and making fondant books,cheese and bottle .I told her the 2 options and she was happy with the seond one which was quite an easy one compared to the other one.

 

 

I made the wine bottle by colouring fondant with  green paste colour and then added a pinch of cmc, rolled it to log and made it thinner for the neck.Covered the neck with a kitchen foil which I previously wrapped on a original wine bottle neck for the neck effect.Making Books was easy, I made square shaped fondant and placed them inside  coloured fondants  which i rolled to sheets , I cut the excess off and then I ran a knife around the edges of book to show the papers.Cheese was the simplest, just make a rough traingle shape with yellow fondant and with a finger gently press on top and sides to make small wells !
 

The cake was a vanilla cake with swiss meringue buttercream which was her choice .