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Have you tried macaron before? The first time I ate it was already like 2 years ago. My cousin brought a pretty box full with colourful macarons from Lisa Suriahani's photoshoot ke apa ntah lupa, they were freaking sweet! Not being a sweet tooth myself, I remember that I did not like them. That explained why I always hesitate at trying any macarons recipes.

BUT recently, my favourite youtubers, Tanya and Zoe made a baking video where they attempted to make macarons and they inspired me!. I thought, "hey, that isn't looks so hard, let's give it a try"

and yes, I did, haha.

Anatomy of a macaron. lol.

French macarons are thin, light, flavourful meringue cookies that are made with simple combination of egg white, sugar and ground almond. They are sandwiched together with fillings like jam, buttercream, ganache, etc. The smooth, glossy shell should be puff up (due to the steam released by whipped egg whites) and sit on a little feet. Macaron should be crispy outside and kinda chewy when you eat it.

I honestly think my first attempt was a beginner luck bc my macarons came out prettily from the oven, YAY. :) I did some macarons research beforehand through youtube and blogs. I decided to try using Azlita's recipe, and thankfully it was really easy to follow. I'd like to recommend you to read HowToCookThat's FAQ questions and watch Beth's video for macarons baking tips.

Anyway, I made macarons for a little gathering I had recently and the responds were positive. ;P My friends liked them and my cousin offered me to make a batch of these for her wedding's candy booth. So I guess, my first attempt goes well? *angkat2 kening*

Without further ado, here are the ingredients that you'll need;

Since it was my first attempt, I decided to just go with simple fillings that I already had in the kitchen, so I sandwiched them with chocolate ganache, nutella, and peanut butter.

I would like to try making lemond curd, and buttercream filling for my second batch.

Tip : Before you start, make sure that all the tools and ingredients are in dry conditions. No oil and water contact.

1) Firstly, line 3-4 baking trays with parchment paper.

A tip here is to use parchment paper. Non-stick baking paper works fine too.

2) Trace the outline of 20 sen or 50 sen coin onto the parchment paper and flip it over so the macarons won't touch the lead from pencil or pen. Leave about 1 inch between each circle.

Alternatively, you can use small round cookies cutter, press into flour and make an imprint of it on the parchment paper. Then, set aside.

3) Combine and shift icing sugar and ground almond together and set aside. (If your ground almond looks course and clumpy, grind it a bit more to ensure nice, smooth outer shell of macarons)

4) In another bowl, whisk egg whites on medium-low for 2 minutes and increase the speed to medium-high and continue whisking until soft peaks form like in the picture below,

5) With a mixer running, gradually add in caster sugar and continue to whisk in high speed. Whisk until the meringue is smooth, glossy and form a stiff peak like in the picture below;

*These whole steps (4 and 5) take about 10-15 minutes.

tip : orang kata sampai 'bertanduk', when it form something like this, then stop.

kalau terbalik mangkuk, your meringue won't fall.

jangan overbeat!

6) Remove bowl from the mixer and add in 1/4 of the almond+icing sugar mixture over the meringue. Use a silicone spatula to fold into the meringue until everything is cooperate (not runny). In Malay we called it kaedah kaup balik.

Add the rest of the almond mixture until finish using the same amount of it in each addition.

Tip: Try to not undermix or overmix. Don't over fold the meringue/batter until it turn watery (overmix).

It should be look something like this,

7) Add in food colouring.

I'd like to recommend using it in powder form or gel as liquid could change the batter consistency - result in flat and lumpy macaron. Since I didn't have any of them, I used liquid food coluring - 1 tablespoon of green and 1 1/2 tablespoons of pink. *you can see the colour different formed after they baked.

8) Put batter into a pipping bag and pipe it within the round imprint which had been made earlier. Tip: After finish, tap the baking tray on the bench few times. This is important to prevent macarons from cracking when they baked.

9) Next, let the macarons rest for at least 30 minutes or until dry.

(they doesn't stick into finger when touch)

Meanwhile, preheat oven at 150 degree celcius.

10) Lastly, put them into oven for 15-20 minutes, varies depending on oven. Remove from oven and let them cool before fill.

SEE, not so scary. ;P

I admit that making macarons is a bit tricky and I myself couldn't get the right consistency yet, but give them a try!

Patutlah macarons mahal. RM2.00 sebijik ~o~

80% from my first batch at least (to me) looked fine. Hehe

*a side by side picture of a disaster macaron and a perfect one.

It was either I didn't tap the tray enough (they were from different batch), oven's temperature was high or too much liquid food colouring.

/buat postmortem/ lol.

dah k bye.

asdffddghjk woohyun and lulu

Last weekend I watched All Stars Masterchef where the participants had to bake cream puffs for their elimination round. There were 2 dishes prepared by each of them - sweet cream puff and savoury cream puff. They all looked so delish especially the one from Raja Azmi. Lepas tu I craving lah pulak kan. Hehe.

I honestly think it's kinda weird how cream puff is made, like it need to be cooked on stove and later baked inside the oven. So I search for the answer online and it says here 'The water and butter mixture has to be boiling before adding any more ingredients because the heat is necessary to swell the starch granules in the flour'

Kill two birds with one stone betul, do your baking and at the same time, learn something new related to science. LOL.

Anyway, cream puff or what france people called 'Choux a la creme' is a small and crispy pastry with a large hallow hole inside filled with whipped cream. So I think I did mine correctly ㅋㅋ

Yum, I made Vanilla and Chocolate whipped cream for their filling. I decided to double the recipe since I was using a large pot and I managed to get 18 cream puffs.

Apart from Masterchef, I watched 3 different videos on YouTube on how to make cream puffs and they were from Joysofbaking, Cooking With Dog & Eugine Kitchen. The recipe was originally from here

So what you'll needing are;

-250 ml water

-100 gram butter

-1 teaspoon castor sugar

-125 gram all-purpose flour

- 3 eggs (Gred B)

- 1/2 teaspoon of salt

1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees C, line baking tray with parchment paper or lightly butter.

2) In a bowl, shift together flour and salt.

3) Add in water, butter, castor sugar and into a pot and cook over medium-high heat until they boiled.

4) Remove from heat and add in flour mixture all at once, and stir quickly until combined

5) Bring back to heat and continue to stir until the mixture forms a ball/dough that doesn't separate. (about 1 minute)

6) Transfer the dough into another bowl and let it cool for 5-10 minutes.

7) Add in egg, one at a time, stir until all combine before add in another egg. (can use electric mixture or just use spoon for this) After adding all eggs, dough will become smooth thick paste.

8) Transfer the batter into pipping bag and pipe circles about 5 cm apart.

9) Bake inside the oven for 15 minutes at 200 degrees C and lower down the heat to 180 degrees C and continue to bake for 20-30 minutes until they are brown and puffy.

Mine here looked pale because of the light, so this picture don't bring justice. LOL.

Second batch fresh from the oven

See the hallow hole I said earlier

For the filling, beat in whipped cream using electric mixture on medium high speed. Add 2 tablespoons of vanilla essence and 3 spoons of icing sugar. Alternatively, you can substitute whipped cream to custard filling or ice-cream or anything fancy to make it tastes savoury hehe.