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!

i've neglected my blog for so long, sorry about that. i just haven't had much time on hand. macaron orders aside, i'm also working on something (which i will reveal later here!). meanwhile, i made few days ago. having made croissants and had considerably successful results, i'm now more confident in laminating dough so i thought i wanted to give this a try. my first attempt at marbled bread looked horrible and to think of it, it was pretty embarrassing. i thought this attempt was way better, in terms of height, swirl pattern and texture. the only problem was letting my mind wander off and i actually made 4 bookturns instead of 3 so the swirls weren't that distinctive.

the first time i made croissants was two years ago. i took a random recipe off a blog and it turned out very badly - leaking butter, layers not distinctive, blisters on the surface after baking. i wasn't sure if it were due to my lack of skill or what but after that i was pretty scarred i felt i just wasn't cut out to make laminated dough of any sort. i've been getting my fix from paul and maison kayser and recently, JOHAN, a japanese bakery inside isetan. since japanese recipes all worked out for me somehow and never once had i failed from it, i decided to try out once more. japanese are damn good at making artisan breads by the way, their standard is on par with the european counterparts, if not better.