Hello Kitty & Dear Daniel Swan Lake Theme

I was pondering what I should do for my marzipan plaque and since my kiddos love Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel, I thought I might as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone...ha!ha! My princess love ballet and my prince loves drama...so tadaa...Hello Kitty & Dear Daniel Swan Lake Theme. Here's the result of my plaque.... I forgot to take some photos before putting it into the box...oophs!!!

I was over the moon when one of my friends wanted to use my plaque as a cake topper for her cake...wohoo!!!

Macaron or Macaroons?

Macarons or Macaroons? Does it really matter....these babies taste delicious. Having said that, Chef Zumbo did commented that these 2 are indeed different... "He said a macaron is characterised by a dome-shaped biscuit made of egg whites and almond meal, hard to the touch with a chewy interior and a macaroon is a small meringue cake, typically made of coconut and often dipped in chocolate"

We had a ball of a time making macaroons in class and not forgetting eating one in every 10-15 mins...ha!ha!

Tadaa....that's it...lovely macaroons for your eating pleasure!!!

Marzipan (Modelling)

Another interesting class that we have this semester is Marzipan. We started from doing our own marzipan, then proceed onto modelling of plaques, fruits, figurines (people and animals) to covering a fruit cake.  Here's some photos of fruits and veggies which we did in our marzipan classes.

Caramelized Petit Fours

I have seen this in showcases and such but I never tried it before except for caramel apples. We boiled the sugar at 150 degrees C till it turns golden brown and then we carefully dipped it into the caramel and allows the access to drip back into the pot. We then transfer the caramelised petit fours onto a silicon paper.  Here's a photo of our caramelized petit fours. My phone camera really sucks sometimes... :(
We had fun in class today!!!

Biscuits, Cookies...

We were having a discussion about cookies and biscuits in our class...and it got pretty interesting. In the US, it seems that a biscuit is like a scone and a cookie are sweet and kind of hard and flat like the famous chocolate chips cookies. However, what is called a cookie in the US is known as a biscuit in UK. Anyway, be it biscuits or cookies, I just love making these babies.

We made several types of fresh petit fours such as Chocolate Spiced Biscuits, Frosted Almond Biscuits, Little Legs Cookies, Macaroons and Financiers. Its all so yummylicious and so sweet.  Awesome for people who has a sweet tooth.  Here's some photos of these babies.

Assorted Macaroons....its really heavenly!!!

Mini Fruit Tartlets and Financiers

Chocolate Spiced Biscuits

Little Legs Cookies

Marzipan Petit Fours - Nougat Triangle, Piping Marzipan, Marzipan Truffles and Marzipan Fancies

One word...DELICIOUS!!!

Pasta Milano & Pasta ala Asian Style

There's a pasta sale at our local super mart and we bought all sorts of pasta...penne, fusilli, tortiglioni, farfelle and macaroni. Normally, I will do my own fresh pasta from scratch. But, with school and family, I ended up buying the dry pasta...easy peasy!!! My other half wanted me to whip out pasta milano but my little princes does not like anything with cream.  Therefore, in the end, I had to cook 2 different types of pasta to satisfied my whole family.  Here's a photo of the Pasta Milano and Pasta Ala Asian Style.

Pasta Milano with Ham and Mushrooms

Pasta Ala Asian Style (with eggs, fishcakes, minced oyster sauce chicken & green veggies)

That's all for now....going to the fair tomorrow if it doesn't rain...
Happy weekend!!!

Petit Fours & Marzipan (Flowers)

Have started school and am doing petit fours and marzipan this term. Both of my lecturers are awesome. Did you know that petit fours in french means small oven? To me, petit four is just small tiny cakes which I can finish within 2 mouthful..ha!ha!  According to my lecturer, there 2 main types of petit fours - dry and iced. For my first class, we made opera and iced petit fours. Here's a photo of the petit fours which we made in class.

In our 2nd week of our Marzipan class, we made flowers. The technique which my lecturer taught us is quite different from the ones I read in the sugarcrafting books. As my lecturer stated, there's 101 ways to do one piece of art.  Here's a photo of my flowers.

We will be doing figurines and macaroons next week....yippee!!!