Festive Macarons

More macarons Sylvia? Really?

Yes, I know. I'm going crazy over macarons this year. I made some more to bring to a holiday party and I'm loving how I can customize and decorate these delicate cookies.

French Meringue Macarons
Recipe from Macarons
(Makes about 40-50 macarons)

2 3/4 cups of almond flour
2 3/4 cups of powdered sugar
1 cup of egg whites (from 6-7 eggs)
A pinch of salt
3/4 cups of granulated sugar

1. The first step in making successful macarons is to age your egg whites. Separate your egg whites 2-3 days before baking. Cover and store them in the refrigerator. Two hours before you start making your macarons, take the egg whites out of the refrigerator, uncover them, and let them come to room temperature.
2. Sift the almond flour and powdered sugar together. If you have a food processor, put both ingredients in to create as fine as a texture as possible. This helps create smooth macaron shells.
3. Using the whisk attachment on your mixer, whisk the egg whites with the salt. Pour the granulated sugar in three stages. Dumping it all in can deflate the egg whites, so you want to add a little bit at a time. When the egg whites reach stiff peaks, turn the mixer off.
4. Fold the sifted almond flour and sugar with the egg whites. You want to end up with a smooth batter that creates a ribbon when you lift it up from your spatula.
5. When the batter is ready, fill your piping bag and pipe circles on the parchment paper.
6. Carefully tap your tray against the table or counter to eliminate air bubbles.
7. After piping, add the sprinkles on top. Let the macarons rest in room temperature for 15-30 minutes.
8. Preheat the oven to 300°F (325°F for non-convection oven, although convection oven are preferred for macarons).
9. Bake your first tray of macarons for 14 minutes. After the first five minutes, open the oven doors to let out some of the steam.
10. When they're done, let them cool for 5 minutes and then gently peel the macarons off the parchment paper.

If you need some  macaron tutorials or visuals, check out the three videos that Mardi of eat. live. travel. write. made. She shows the three main stages of making macarons: whipping the egg whites, folding the batter, and piping the macarons. Chances are, one of those sections are where most people get stuck!

Vanilla Pastry Cream
Recipe from Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(Makes enough to fill each macaron, with leftovers)

2 cups milk
1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
3 1/2 tablespoons butter

1. Flatten the vanilla bean and slice it open with a sharp knife. Peel the bean open and scrape the seeds out with the knife.
2. In a small pot, bring the milk with the vanilla bean with scrapings to a boil, set it aside to cool for 10 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean.
3. Fill a large bowl with cold water (or ice).
4. In a medium sized pan or small pot, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together. Gradually whisk in the hot milk.
5. Place the pan over high heat and bring it to a boil, whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes. Set the bowl in the ice bath or cold water and stir until the temperature reaches 140°F (60°C) on an instant-read thermometer.
6. Stir in the butter. Cool, cover, and refrigerate.
7. Fill a piping bag with the pastry cream to pipe.

Top tier: I made holly using three red confetti sprinkles. For the holly leaves, I used two tree sprinkles.
Bottom tier: I simply placed red, green, and white confetti sprinkles on the macarons - this one is the easiest as they'll look festive no matter what.

You can go an even simpler route and place one festive icon in the middle of the macaron, here I chose the Christmas tree.

Something even easier, add some coloured sugar sprinkles in a line or waves. I did a few in red, green, and white which creates a nice shimmer and adds a crunchy texture to your macaron.

A tip, do not use jimmies or nonpareils, the colour on these will bleed off and smudge the look or design you're going for. Probably any kind of sprinkle that looks glossy will not work, stick to the matte ones! Happy macaron designing!

Snowmen Macarons

This Christmas, instead of going out and buying sweets, I decided to make them for my colleagues. This was the weekend to make them as some of my coworkers start their holiday next week (including myself)!

I knew I wanted to make macarons again, they're quite the hit in our area, we've even celebrated birthdays with macarons instead of cupcakes lately! Now, to look for festive macaron ideas, I browsed a number of blogs before coming across these from Steph at Raspberri Cupcakes (an amazing blog - go check it out). Ridiculously cute, right?

French Meringue Macarons
Recipe from Macarons
(Makes about 48 snowmen macarons)

2 3/4 cups of almond flour
2 3/4 cups of powdered sugar
1 cup of egg whites (from 6-7 eggs)
A pinch of salt
3/4 cups of granulated sugar.

1. The first step in making successful macarons is to age your egg whites. Yes, we know, this sounds odd, but follow these strict instructions! So separate your egg whites 2-3 days before baking. Store them in the refrigerator - covered. Two hours before you start making your macarons, take the egg whites out of the refrigerator, uncover them, and let them come to room temperature. That's not too difficult! Just keep this in mind during your planning stage.
2. Next, sift the almond flour and powdered sugar. If you have a food processor, put both ingredients in to create as fine as a texture as possible. This helps create smooth macarons.
3. Using the whisk attachment on your mixer, whisk the egg whites with the salt. Pour the granulated sugar in three stages. Dumping it all in can deflate the egg whites, so you want to add a little bit at a time. When the egg whites reach stiff peaks, you're done!
4. Fold the sifted almond flour and sugar with the egg whites. You want to end up with a smooth batter that creates a ribbon when you lift it up from your spatula.
5. When the batter is ready, fill your piping bag and pipe the body of the snowmen on parchment paper. Then go back and add the head of the snowmen. Carefully tap your tray against the table or counter to eliminate air bubbles.
6. Add three silver dragées for buttons as the macarons are resting. Let them rest in room temperature for 15-30 minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 300°F (325°F for non-convection oven, the cookbook recommends using a convection oven because of the even distribution of heat).
8. Bake your first tray of macarons for 14 minutes. After the first five minutes, open the oven doors to let out some of the steam.
9. When they're done, let them cool for 5 minutes and then gently peel the macarons off the parchment paper.

Snowmen with silver buttons and feet!

Phew! Adding the decoration on top of the macaron batter was a first, so I'm glad that worked out!

After the macarons were cooled and rested, I used my handy orange edible ink pen to draw on the carrot noses.

Then, using the black edible ink pen for the eyes and mouth.

Look at them! I filled these bad boys with vanilla pastry cream!

Vanilla Pastry Cream
Recipe from Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(Makes enough to fill each macaron, with leftovers)

2 cups milk
1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
3 1/2 tablespoons butter

1. Flatten the vanilla bean and slice it open with a sharp knife. Peel the bean open and scrape the seeds out with the knife. 
2. In a small pot, bring the milk with the vanilla bean with scrapings to a boil, set it aside to cool for 10 minutes; remove bean. 
3. Fill a large bowl with cold water (or ice). 
4. In a medium sized pan or small pot, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together. Gradually whisk in the hot milk. 
5. Place the pan over high heat and bring it to a boil, whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes. Set the bowl in the ice bath or cold water and stir until the temperature reaches 140°F (60°C) on an instant-read thermometer. 
6. Stir in the butter. Cool, cover, and refrigerate.

Here's the second tray!

Gosh, they're really cute.

I only did a round macaron for the back of the snowmen. I think I should have made the full body for the back too.

Next time!

Here are some happy snowmen frolicking in the snow.

These ones don't look as happy.

Nor do these, a big snowstorm would mean getting covered up!

To package up my snowmen macarons, I went to find cute little take-out boxes. There were so many festive boxes to choose from, but I thought these Santa ones were really eye-catching!

Carefully tucking the macarons in with parchment paper. Everyone gets five! Is five enough?

I had extra snowmen macarons, so I placed them in sandwich bags and twist-tied them. It wasn't difficult to find homes for these ones in the office.

Disclaimer: This year, A Baked Creation is partnering up with Robin Hood®, who is celebrating the 30th anniversary of their annual Holiday Recipe Collection. They were kind enough to send us a baking package and it included the silver dragées!

So glad we could put them to good use already! Here's to the first of many baking memories this season!

Decorating Cupcakes for EverythingMom

This took some time, but I think it was all worth it in the end. Through twitter DM and e-mail troubles, Carrie Anne was finally able to get in touch with me. I'm glad she did, because she had a fun idea for me! Carrie Anne Badov is Partner and Editor-in-Chief at EverythingMom, I actually know her from work because she is an avid reader and helps promote books and literacy. Long story short, she wanted to know if I would be interested in doing a Christmas/Holiday cupcake article. I said yes!

I spent the weekend brainstorming some simple, but fun ideas for families to make. I even went out and bought some holiday sprinkles. Trees, stars, snowflakes, and candy canes - all in miniature sugar form - perfect!

I took out some colourful cupcake liners (thank you Mike and Megan) and baked some old-fashioned chocolate cupcakes. Then took out the piping bag, my piping tips, and some candies.

Click here to see the cupcake creations on EverythingMom.com!

Winter Party Cupcakes 2

Here are my second winter-themed cupcakes! The first one can be seen by clicking here. These cupcakes are vanilla with raspberry filling and topped with chocolate buttercream. I hope you enjoy the decorations, I made these little figures from fondant:

"...they keep falling..
But there's one thing I know
The blues they send to meet me won't defeat me
It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me..."

Do you prefer snowfakes or raindrops falling on your head?

Skates! I did the two, Howard's on the left and mine on the right.

Mom and Pop!

Brother and Sister!

A rare blog comment from Howard: The subtle/cute smile reminded me if a clip I saw somewhere where someone personified a cherry tomatoe by cutting a slit in it for a mouth then made a skit of it being sick and vomitting out "its guts" by squeezing it? So now for some reason I want to do the same thing but on this fondant snowgirl.
Nooo... not the little snowgirl! And this is why I mainly do the blogging.

Inspired by the Buffalo plaids that I've seen at Roots lately.
Some warm wooly mittens and a trapper hat!

The full album of photos can be viewed on our facebook page. They were posted early as a sneak preview for our fans. =)

Happy Hanukkah

Couple's Christmas Cupcakes

It is Christmas Eve!

We have a family friend who is currently in Korea for EPIK. Amy keeps a blog about her experiences there and takes some fabulous photography. Well, the LDR (long distance relationship) isn't keeping her from giving her boyfriend a Christmas surprise this year! So she creatively schemed up a plot that would leave him unsuspicious for his surprise. How could we not help? Tim likes fruits on his cakes, so we make chocolate cupcakes with chocolate-orange buttercream sprinkled with candied orange zest. She mailed her Christmas card and I also picked up a gift card for her. Some stores are not available in Korea... hehe! Amy also sent me a recipe to make candied orange zest. This was my first time making them, I love how in some of the candies you can still see the texture of the orange!

Merry Xmas Tim! This is your surprise Christmas present from Amy!

Snowflake, holly, fondant message plaque, and candied orange zest!

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate-orange buttercream decorated with a small fondant heart. These hearts were featured on foodgawker!

The happy snow couple holding hands. Watch out, the snow just might melt! The fondant heart and frosting is covering the view, but you can see the couple holding hands from above!

Candied Orange Zest

Adapted from RecipeTips

2 Oranges

1/3 cup of water

1/3 cup of sugar

1. Wash the oranges thoroughly. Peel the oranges and set the orange peels them in a sauce pan of cold water.
2. Cook until the water simmers for about 5 minutes.
3. Remove the orange peels from the sauce pan, drain, and place them in cold water. This cools the orange peels so that you can work with it.
4. Using a melon baller, scrape the pith (the bitter white layers on the orange peels) off and then cut the orange zest into strips.
   
5. In the sauce pan, add the 1/3 cup of water and sugar. Put the orange zest strips in the sauce pan and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. The strips should turn translucent and the sugar water should thicken.
6. Remove the orange zest from the sauce pan and let it cool on a sheet of wax paper. Separate the candied orange zest before it cools (otherwise they'll stick together).
7. Then, if you prefer, roll the strips in sugar until they are well covered and allow them to cool completely before storing in an airtight container. You can eat the candied orange zest as is, or use them as sprinkles over cupcakes!

Winter Party Cupcakes

'Tis the season to entertain! We were asked to make chocolate cupcakes for a winter-themed holiday party that incorporated chocolate-orange and mint. For the decorations, we made a cute assortment of mittens, snow people, snowflakes, and holly. As always, check out our flickr photostream or become a fan on our facebook page for more photos! Our previous cupcake projects can be found categorized on the right side-bar (or scroll down to go to the next page).

Mint buttercream on chocolate cupcake.

Fondant snowperson with jimmies as eyes, buttons, and arms. Sitting on top mint buttercream frosting on chocolate cupcake.

Fondant star mitten on mint buttercream and chocolate cupcake.

Fondant holly on mint buttercream frosting on chocolate cupcake.

This photo was featured on The Well Dressed Cupcake.

Icing sugar on fondant snowflake resting on mint buttercream and chocolate cupcake.

The Mint Buttercream Family

Chocolate buttercream on chocolate cupcake. 

Thats right. I'm sporting the Purple and Gold.

Don't you love how it looks like chocolate soft-serve? Yummy!

This photo was featured on TasteSpotting!

Fondant snowperson on chocolate buttercream frosting and chocolate cupcake.

Fondant holly on chocolate buttercream and chocolate cupcake.

Icing sugar on fondant snowflake on chocolate buttercream and chocolate cake.

This photo was featured on foodgawker.

Fondant heart mitten on chocolate buttercream and chocolate cupcake.

The Chocolate Buttercream Family

Chocolate-orange buttercream on chocolate cupcake.

Icing sugar on fondant snowflake placed on chocolate-orange buttercream frosting and chocolate cupcake.

Fondant holly on chocolate-orange buttercream and chocolate cupcake.

Fondant heart mitten on chocolate-orange buttercream and chocolate cupcake.

This photo was featured on Photograzing.

Fondant snowpeople made with jimmies on chocolate-orange buttercream and chocolate cupcake.

The Chocolate-Orange Buttercream Family