Lemon cake with blackberry frosting

After several failures with macarons, I decided to bake cupcakes again. It's more of a rewarding experience coz cupcakes never really fail. It's spring time so I'm excited to try Annie's recipe of the lemon cupcake. The cakes turned out lemony and fluffy. For the blackberry frosting, it is nice to have the pinkish color from the blackberry puree without having to add food coloring, however the frosting is too sweet for my liking. I couldn't really taste the tartness of the blackberry at all! I wonder how to get the right consistency without having to add so much icing sugar.

Make 15 cupcakes

For the lemon cake
1.5 cups cake flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
115g unsalted butter, at room temp
1/2 lemon, zested
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, at room temp
2/3 cup buttermilk, at room temp (1tbsp lemon juice & just under 1 cup milk, sit for 10mins)
1/2 tbsp lemon extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the blackberry frosting
115g unsalted butter, at room temp
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1/4 cup blackberries
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
blackberries, for garnish

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 175C. Line cupcake tins with paper liners, set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk to combine. In another bowl, add the butter and lemon zest. Beat on medium high speed for about 3 mins, until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for 1 more min.
3. Add sugar to the butter mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, beating 1 min after each addition.
4. Mix in the eggs one at a time until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition. 
5. Combine the buttermilk and the lemon extract and vanilla extract with a cup. With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients alternately with the wet ingredients, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients and mixing just until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix for 15 seconds.
6. Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 of the way full with batter. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 18mins.

Black sesame macarons with chocolate ganache

Today I continue my experiment on making macarons. Since I have a pack of black sesame seeds that will go off soon, I decided to make some black sesame macs. I actually love the aroma of black sesame a lot. Without any black sesame powder, I had to ground it myself with food processor. I knew it would be a problem coz even after processing it for 5 mins, the sesame seeds just wouldn't turn into very fine powder. That affected the smoothness of the shells.

Another problem is the color of the shells again. I just couldn't get it cooked perfectly without slightly browning them. So instead of grey color, they kind of became brownish for my first batch at 160C for 12mins. I turned down the temperature to 140C and baked for 16mins for my second batch and even kept a wooden spatula on the oven door to release some heat. However, they just didn't cook through and crisp up like the first batch. 

Unfortunately, the macs had the same problem as my second attempt with strawberry macarons. The shells were sloped so the feet got ugly. I checked the macaron book that it was due to uneven oven heat. But I didn't have this problem with my very first attempt on chocolate macarons!!

Even with all these problems, the macs tasted wonderful with the lovely aroma of black sesame and tasted yum with obvious sesame flavor in it. I just used the leftover chocolate ganache as filling, which always tastes good with any flavor of macaron shells :)

The batter looked beautiful in grey but when they are baked, they aren't so grey anymore!

Make 9 macarons

Ingredients

1/2 cup icing sugar (64g)

48g almond flour

16g finely ground black sesame

3tbsp egg white

pinch of salt

25g granulated sugar

Adapted from black sesame macarons

Strawberry macarons with strawberry cream cheese filling

My first chocolate macarons was so yummy! I'm tempted to make some strawberry macs today. The recipe for the meringue is the same, and I just added some strawberry powder to the dry ingredients. However something went wrong in the process and it became a total disaster!

The first batch with 9 mins was burnt! Tried to bake the second batch with shorter time. It wasn't fully done yet but the shell was already turning brown on 6mins, so I immediately took them out. Tried the third batch and it was even worse. The feet is spilling everywhere. I was staring at the oven when that happened and it was painful to watch! I think one of the problems is the uneven heat inside the oven because of the baking tray I used. I think it would be much better with a silicon mat. 

Now I know why people say macaron is very troublesome. Any minor variable will affect the outcome. Luckily a few macarons managed to survive so I can still enjoy the fruits of my labor. Love the strawberry cream cheese filling, though the shells were more chewy than crispy. I suggest to pipe the filling only when serve to avoid the shells getting soggy with the moisture of the cream and strawberries.

Make 18 macarons

Ingredients

Macaron shell

83g almond flour

83g icing sugar

10g strawberry powder

75g granulated sugar

60g egg white

1/4tsp cream of tartar

Strawberry cream cheese filling

100g strawberry cream cheese

3 tbsp quality strawberry jam

4 strawberries hulled and diced

Directions

Same as the recipe of chocolate macarons

except that bake for 8mins at 160C. Mix the cream cheese, jam and strawberries to make the filling. Put the filling on macarons before served.

Chocolate macarons with ganache filling

I love macarons! They are so cute and elegant at the same time. Baking macarons is rather simple yet quite technical. After baking so many cupcakes, it's time to learn something new. Since I have leftover egg whites from making creme brulee, I decided to try to make macarons today.

I have heard that it's very difficult to get the perfect texture for the macaron shells. I was staring at the oven while it's baking to see if the feet rise. That moment was magical when I saw them rising. The shells were so crunchy and slightly chewy when you bite into it. I was surprised how perfect it turned out on my first attempt! It made me so happy. They tasted so yum and I had to stop myself from eating all of them so I can give some to my friends.

Makes 34 macarons (17 one inch sandwiched macarons)

Ingredients

Macaron shells

73g almond flour

73g icing sugar

13 unsweetened cocoa powder

75g granulated sugar

60g egg white (aged egg white is better)

1/4tsp cream of tartar

Chocolate ganache filling

1/2 semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 whipping cream

Directions

1. Mix almond flour, icing sugar and cocoa powder, then sift it.
2. Whisk half the granulated sugar and cream of tartar with egg white for about 5 mins or until sniff peak. merigine
3. Use spatula to quickly fold the sifted ingredients into the meringue until the batter drops off the spatula when it holds up.
4. Let the batter sit for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 105C.
5. Spoon the batter in a pipping bag fitted with a 1/2 inch round tip. Pipe the batter on baking paper with 1 inch away from each other. Slam the tray to remove excess air.
6. Bake for 15mins at 105C to dry out the shells. Then turn up the temperature to 175C and bake for an additional 10mins.
7. Put the baking paper with macarons on cooling rack when it's done baking to cool down completely.
8. Put the cream and chocolate chips in a bowl on top of simmering hot water to melt for the ganache filling.
9. Cool down the ganache filling and put it on one macaron, then assemble with another macaron.

Salmon fish cake with yam

Cooked this awhile ago when I looked for new recipes to try. I think I would rather just pan fry the beautiful fresh salmon fillet than making it into a fish cake. Oh well, at least I tried. Now I don't feel too bad to always cook salmon the same way then.

Crème brûlée

One of my new year's resolution for 2013 is to learn one new dessert recipe a month but I haven't baked once since I was back from Italy in Jan! Baking is not only time consuming, it can be very frustrating too if you fail after putting so much effort in it. So the first dessert I make this year is the simplest dessert, creme brulee.




All you need is 4 ingredients and half an hour baking time. I was very excited when I saw the beautiful egg yolks and smell the fragrance of vanilla and cream while heating. But when I opened the oven after the cooking time, my heart sank coz the egg custard looked like the surface of the moon, rugged and ugly! I think I probably put too much water into the pan, or used slow bake mode instead of convection mode or overcook it slightly although the recipe says 40mins and I only baked for 30mins. I was upset until I tried a spoonful of it. Yum!! It tasted exactly like how it should be. So that wasn't a total failure.

Serves 6

Ingredients
600ml thickened/whipping cream
1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scrapped or 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
6 egg yolks (I checked other recipes, looks like 4 yolks is also ok)
1/4 cup caster sugar
120g demerara sugar or white sugar if you don't have any

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 120C and boil some water for the deep roasting pan.
2. Place the cream, vanilla extract over small heat and bring to scalding point, then remove from heat.
3. Whisk together egg yolks and caster sugar in a bowl for 2-3 mins or until pale yellow.
4. Pour hot cream over egg yolk mixture, continuing to whisk until well combined. Strain mixture into a jug, evenly divide between 6 ramekins.
5. Place ramekins in the pan. Pour boiling water into pan to come halfway up the sides of ramekins. Cover pan loosely with foil.
6. Bake in the oven for 30mins or until the custard has just set. Remove ramekins from the water bath, and set aside to cool on a rack. Put it in the fridge for 4 hrs to cool and set.
7. Before serve, sprinkle demerara sugar evenly over the surface of the baked custards. Run a blowtorch over the custards, or place under a preheated grill until the sugar bubbles and caramelises.

Source: http://www.masterchef.com.au/recipes/crme-brulee.htm

Fillet mignon and seared scallops

This is definitely one of my favorite luxurious and indulgent home made dinners. Fillet mignon cooked to medium rare and seared scallops, served with some creamy cheesy potatoes and veggies. This time I bought some fresh jumbo scallops from Three Sixty. Very pricey but it's totally worth it! The scallops were so sweet and fresh.

I don't like dining out as much as before since I start cooking. If I can cook a very nice dinner at home with at least half the price of dining at a fancy restaurant, why would I even want to dine out? And the main reason is unlike many restaurants, I will never ever over cook and ruin my steak. (Only undercook haha and hubby will give me a face that says it's too raw to eat so I will cook for a min more in oven) However, recently Three Sixty doesn't have special price for the fillet anymore. It's $90/100g. So two fillets normally cost $180 before will now cost about $280!!

Black pepper chicken spaghetti

Really yummy and got a nice kick from the black pepper.