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.

junko has done it again, this time in the form of decorated mushipan (steamed cup bread). she's probably most well known for her decorated roll cakes but she actually has a few other books on decorated desserts like puddings and cookies as well. i only saw this book recently at the store so i reckon this must be her latest. was actually not very keen on making mushipan again after the first attempt (it was really dry) but the cute decorations really wowed me. theres even one on alpaca. did you know alpacas are really big in japan? they've got plush toys, stationery and stuff. who would have thought?