happy new year, lunar new year and valentines day as well! yet another 8 months have passed, no idea if anyone still reads this blog but my new year resolution is actually to come back to blogging, and to do it more often. and nothing beats starting a new year with a macaron post, something that i've been making for 12 years now. the only difference is i now use a built in oven to bake my macarons. it was finicky in the beginning since it took alllllot of figuring out the temperament of my oven. turns out that the temperature display isn't that all accurate. i had to attempt lots of trial & error as well as using two oven thermometers to help figure things out. my ovens are way too hot so i'm now baking my macarons about 20-30 degrees lower than shown on the display.

i've taken a couple of macaron orders as well, its heartwarming to know people still remember my macarons.





















i will be doing up my catalog menu on dessert couture and it will be up real soon. i forsee i will also be making more macarons this year, so stay tuned!

just to showcase some of the things i did for the past two weeks.


a feeble attempt to go black - bamboo charcoal macarons with black sesame ganache. i don't think its black enough so back to the drawing board!


rainbow roll cake. amidst all that striped roll cakes i did, this one is my fav!


an order from my best girlfriend, E, for her mom in law's birthday.

the haze has been really bad these few weeks, sometimes even dipping into hazardous levels. friends in singapore/malaysia/indonesia who're affected by it, please take care!

i experimented with sakura macarons recently. since its not a very common flavor, i have not tried it before hence there wasn't any reference for me. i decided to just keep it simple and made them pink with pickled sakura flowers on top.

the first half of 2014 went by in a blur. i felt that i haven't been baking much but looking back, i actually made tons of stuff. some of them were uploaded on flickr and forgotten but most of the time, i didn't bother using my DSLR so i just took some shots with my phone and uploaded them on instagram. here are some of the stuff i made + orders i took as well.


i had a couple of orders for japanese-inspired macarons. this is my first year making sakura ones and according to my customers, they were pretty well received. i guess the saltiness of the sakura flowers and leaves offset the sweetness of the macarons. i also experimented with jasmine flavored macarons. jasmine tea is dirt cheap so i had no qualms in dumping a whole lot of leaves in the cream. yay to pronounced jasmine flavor!

the girlfriend went to taiwan again and gifted me with a box of chocorons from sadaharu AOKI, taipei! arent these gorgeous? chocorons are basically chocolate-coated macarons and we were discussing about aoki's desserts on whatsapp just before she went on her trip, didnt expect her to actually get me a box of these. don't i just have the awesomest girlfriends? they always bring me stuff from patisseries out of town :D

realized i had not been posting pics of my macarons for quite sometime! biz is still as brisk as ever but i did try to squeeze in sometime to experiment with one or two new flavors. also happy to have new packaging(s) finally! above pic shows a white drawer box and i love its simplicity so i can feel free to play around with ribbons and stickers.

my friend claire went to paris to visit her in-laws again so i took the opportunity to ask her for a box of macarons from ladurée. after my first experience trying them 3 years ago (and it wasn't good), i really wanted to try them again.

for many years, i've had enquiries asking whether i could make variety gift boxes like these but to be honest i didn't really think i was up to it. i didn't have appropriate packaging then and i didn't really wanna use white cake boxes or anything generic from the baking supplies stores or even daiso. i was happy to be able to find packaging i like finally and for this order, my customer was kind enough to leave everything to me with the only requirement that the items have gotta be able to transport easily ie. stuff that won't melt or crumble all over. so i came up with these.

last weekend, i had a dessert order for a wedding. i was really happy coz its been almost a month or so since i made anything decent. it was macarons after macarons after macarons, i missed my desserts! my customer requested some of the items she seen on my blog so here's what i did :

i know, you must be wondering whats up with the korean title. i recently watched this korean drama 'lie to me' and this korean cafe called a twosome place sponsored their cafe scenes and had the lead actress eating an ispahan-looking macaron in one of the scenes (episode 3, to be exact) and it made its appearance a few more times after that. being a self-confessed korean drama addict, i've not seen any mentions of macarons in the dramas so i was mildly surprised. yoon eun hye made it look so yummy i wanted to recreate it myself. basically, from the pic on the cafe's website, it looked like berries and whipped cream sandwiched between a pink and brown shell. to be frank, after all these years of macaron making, i've not tried sandwiching them with two different colored shells (i did KIV pierre herme's montebello macaron on my to-do list but i never got around making it), neither have i used whipped cream so i was really looking forward to it.

not too long ago i came across this french magazine called yummy magazine and almost miss it for good coz the cover wasn't anything much. it resembled a supermarket periodical or an university publication but when i downloaded it, i fell in love with it rightaway, never mind my french vocabulary is limited to just some food words. the magazine had an easy-to-read layout, nice whimsical fonts and good recipes. i was attracted to the deep purple cassis (blackcurrant) macarons on the cover of the #6 issue, which was the christmas issue and wasted no time in trying these out.

it had been an intense week having to make around 500 macarons! as usual, here were some pics i took. flavors as shown here are pistachio, rose, lemon coconut & coffee.

i have always wanted to incorporate popcorn into my macarons coz i think the flavor would be so awesome when paired with a salted caramel filling and it really is! all along i've been sticking to one caramel fleur de sel recipe for my macarons which i think is pretty good, but the salted butter caramel cream that pierre herme uses in his macaron book got me really curious. i mean, one that doesn't use fleur de sel, vanilla bean nor glucose/corn syrup, would it be good? i just had to try.

will be really busy for the month of nov & dec. orders just keep pouring in so i don't think i'll be blogging as often.


i leave you with a pic i took using the new iphone 4S. no editing at all except for applying a filter on instagram. i totally adore the camera, its fantastic! coffee macarons with coffee ganache...yums.

finally, the english version of the much-awaited pierre hermé's macaron book has hit the shelves and i was elated to get my hands on a copy. it features many of his classic and signature macaron recipes like mogador, infiniment vanille, montebello, olive oil vanilla and ispahan as well as the customized ones he did for his clients like jasmine, oolong and carrot orange. there's also a section where he uses exceptional ingredients like foie gras, black and white truffles and 25-year old balsamic vinegar to incorporate into his macarons so its really fantastic.

elated about the book aside, i was actually more excited to dabble with the italian meringue method, my FIRST after all these years of macaron making. macarons are known to be finicky therefore i just shyed away from anything that would make them even more complicated.

my friend claire went to paris again to visit her fiancé's family and i got more sadaharu AOKI's macarons this time yay!! this is my third time having them this year (so lucky) and not just that, i got to try three cakes from there as well!

remember the last time i said i was really lucky coz i got to try pierre herme's macarons from both tokyo and paris just two weeks apart from each other? this time i'm even luckier coz i got to try sadaharu AOKI's macarons from both taipei & paris on the same day, thx to my two lovely friends angela and claire! since claire returned from paris for almost two weeks already, i ate the macarons straight without taking any photos :( here are the ones from taipei that angela got me.

i seriously cant think of anything more delicious, pretty and feminine than this, the ispahan. unless you dislike rose, it would be a crime to skip this. with some red rose petals and raspberries leftover from the weekend, i just HAD to make these again.

i had macaron orders for two consecutive days. first one was a wedding order, from the bride to her bridesmaids as thank-you gifts. flavors are rose, pistachio & dark choc.

second one - birthday gifts. flavors are matcha adzuki, passionfruit milk choc, caramel fleur de sel & dark choc.

** edited to add : one more last minute order. rose, caramel fleur de sel, black sesame.

i made 200 macarons these two days and the aftermath is extreme dark circles under eyes and aching back, hands & feet. so so tired and desperately need some sleep now *yawns*

was doing macarons for my latest order and was really happy with the outcome for this batch. the feet looks pretty consistent and this batch has got such pretty colors! from left : rose, dark choc, caramel fleur de sel, matcha & coffee.

yum. wish i could devour everything.