Macaron Party!

This obsession with macarons started couple months back when I finally had a good batch of macarons after failures years back. It has since then blossomed into a mad obsession with character macarons. 

 These were the first of the many... It was the French method..

I then went all crazy and did some Tigger macarons. These were mad tricky as I toyed with royal icing to form the features on Tigger's face. 

Also did a little fun basic royal icing.

The next attempt was Pooh bear macarons. Those beady eyes!! (: 

I then tried some Hello Kitty bunny macarons. They weren't as pretty as I wish they were.. But it was my first attempt at using macaronage to do up features of Hello Kitty. 

I then got my tripod and did a video tutorial with these Matcha macarons. Also did Chocolate macarons that very day.

Then I did crazy flavours few days later.

The colours made me really happy. 

I even made them for an event.

Even Monster Inc coloured ones.

I then explore the Italian method with my new candy thermometer. These totoros were birthed!

They were just awfully adorable.

And as I found the Italian method too much of a hassle, I went back to the French method and made these Elmos and Cookie Monsters. 

And since my holidays are here... I went all out and did a whole range of macarons! 

It includes my favourite Mike of Monsters Inc. 

They were lots of fun.. I'm hoping to do more varieties... keep a look out for more! (: 

Matcha Macarons (with Video Tutorial)

If you have noticed, macarons are my latest obsession. I'm pretty sure that stemmed from my sweet success about 2 weeks ago. Earlier this week, I tried making some matcha and chocolate macarons but I made a boo boo and the shells weren't as pretty as I wish they would be. 

Since it was a PH yesterday and that I was gonna meet my mum and siblings for dinner, I decided to bake some macarons for them as they've yet to have any of those I've baked. Also, it also helped that my new tripod arrived on Thursday >.< I did try filming a video tutorial prior to this in my -still quite new- kitchen but truth be told, the angles were HORRIBLE. I decided to invest in a tripod and I'm proud to say that I'm back to doing video tutorials! (: 

So back to the macarons.. as you may already know, they're not the easiest of things to bake but they're such gems. The hubby loves them a lot so it's like a legit reason for me to bake more of them though I don't give him a lot of it to eat. He only gets a few from each batch XD

These Matcha Macarons took me about 1.5 hours to bake and I'd rate it a difficulty level 4 out of 5. There are many factors that may lead to its failure so I'll share how each failure maybe avoided based on the experience I've had. 

Nutella Macarons

Macarons.. my nemesis which made me fail twice. Today, we did another attempt at Sharron's place and I'm thrilled to present these Nutella Macarons to you. I'll be doing another blog posts on the possible reasons why macarons fail based on what I've experienced so far. In any case, these are by far the toughest things to bake due to the many technicality issues to combat when baking them. Every step requires somewhat some precision. 

I'm not gonna lie to you. They're not easy to bake. I've failed these French macarons twice myself and this method/recipe that I've used today is troublesome.. But, what's a little work for these precious gems that are sold at $3.80 a pop from Ladurée? Even a decent one from Bakerzin or Canelé costs $2.50! But! These methods and recipe that I've worked out after 2 times of failing should work real well. So.. click on and learn more! I did not photograph each step of the recipe but I will do so soon.. so do come back and check this page for a detailed image to image recipe!

The recipe is rated difficulty level 5 out of 5 and takes about 1 h 30 mins in all to complete. Recipe proportions were taken from a recipe that Sharron had but methods were assisted by some guidance advised by Jong (: