Rum Macaroon with Rum Chocolate Ganache Filling

Look at my feet! (Except they're kinda rough)

Stack of macaroons!

What I think:
After making the amaretti cookies and realizing how similar it is to macaroons, I finally decided to try making them. It was a relatively good success, except only about 1/3 of them was decent. The rest had either a cracked top or no foot. I assembled the good looking ones, using a rum chocolate ganache as the filling. However, the chocolate was slightly too bitter, perhaps because I might've added too much rum. I had too much ganache left and a bunch of broken macaroons. I salvaged them and turned them into chocolate truffle with macaroon bits filling, which turned out amazing. I guess now I know what to do when I failed at making macaroons :)

Bonus:

Rum Chocolate Truffle with Macaroon Bits Filling

Amaretti Almond Cookies

What I think:
I tried this because I wanted to use up some almonds that I have bought this semester. While baking it, I realized that it almost looked like macaroons, except rougher. It also tasted similar, with a crunchy outside and a soft inside. The almond flavor of the ground almond and amaretto was amazingly good.

Mango Jelly, Teacake, Mochi, and Fruity Pebble Treat

Fruity Pebble Treat

Mochi

Teacakes & Fruity Pebble Treat

Bento box with all four!

What I think:
I went on a baking binge and decided to make four things over one night. As I don't want to spend too much time, I chose recipes that are easy and would allow me to work on multiple things at once. The mochi took about an hour to bake, so I started off with making the mochi and got it into the oven first. The teacakes mix need to be refrigerated for a while before being baked, so I made the batter and put it in the fridge. While waiting for the two most time consuming things to be done, I made the two simpler ones.

The mango jelly turned alright, although not as good as I wanted it to be. It's probably the mango extract I was using. The fruity pebble treat was really tasty. Definitely something I would do again when I don't have too much time. The teacakes was similar to the one I made before, except I used walnut instead of cashew and no Wisjman butter. They still turned out well though. The mochi turned out to be the most time consuming one because somebody forgot to grease the pan, which made taking them off the pan a pain and left a considerable amount that we need to scrape of the pan.

Scones!

Slightly burnt scones :(

Yum!

What I think:
I haven't had a good scones in awhile, so I tried making my own. Since I had extra Heath crunch from the sandwich cookies, I decided to add them into the mix to add the toffee flavor in, which turned out really great as they melted inside the scones and gave a sweet caramel smell. Unfortunately, they were overcooked and the outside was slightly burnt. Since they don't have Devonshire cream over here, I tried a substitute recipe that uses mascarpone cheese and whipping cream. It wasn't as smooth as the real one, but it worked pretty well with the scones.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with White Chocolate Filling and Mascarpone Cream Icing

Added icing and white chocolate swirls

White chocolate filling on the inside!

What I think :
Somehow I decided to bake two red-velvet stuff consecutively, except this time I decided to use more red food coloring! I was too lazy to use the cupcake plunger that I bought several weeks ago, and filled it straight from a piping bag. The white chocolate filling was a bit too sweet, but it goes well with the cake. The mascarpone icing added a light creamy taste to it, except there wasn't enough for all the cupcakes. I tried making some more chocolate swirls using the the remaining white chocolate and added them to the top as decoration.

Snickerdoodles

Fresh straight out of the oven

Packaged in cling wraps :)

What I think:
Another easy recipe to try out. Best served warm, as it will still be chewy. I tried packaging it in cling wraps, as they're made as gifts. I think it looked pretty decent, perhaps tying it up with ribbon would make it even better.

Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies with Heath Crunch

The cookies!

Fully assembled with the frosting

What I Think: 

The cookies are supposed to be much  thinner than what I've made them, which made it really hard to eat them as the filling would fall out. The cookies were still chewy and tasty though, but not red enough. I should've added more red food coloring, to make it more red-velvety. The filling however, was way too sweet. It was essentially made from two sticks of butter, 1 lb of cream cheese, and a whole pack of icing sugar plus we added some Heath crunch to it. It was literally tooth-aching to eat, yet so good in a really really bad way. Now, I still have an excess of the filling sitting in my fridge.

Coffee Liqour Brownies

 

 

What I Think:

The brownies turned out really thin, but that's probably because I was using a pan that is 1.5x larger than the one suggested but somehow it wasn't dense at all! In fact, it was soft and airy that would melt as you're eating it. The coffee liquor was a nice addition to the chocolate flavor, and along with the amaretto icing blends them all together. I added some chocolate chunks on top for decoration because it looked too plain, but I don't think they work out very well...

Crepes

What I Think:
I had too much milk, and since I wasn't bothered to bake anything big, I went looking a simple recipe that uses milk. Turned out that crepes use milk as the liquid, so I decided to make it. It's a quick and simple to make, and won't take too long. I added espresso liquor to the mix to give with a hint of coffee flavour, which went really well with the chocolate shavings and strawberries. I also tried creating chocolate shavings, but they didn't turn out too well, perhaps using vegetable peeler wasn't the best idea, but it sure makes a lot of little chocolate swirls quickly.

Mixed Berry Pavlova

The meringue before adding the filling

Top view of the pavlova, with strawberries and blackberries

Side view

What I Think:
Well, what do you know, I tried making meringue again. So far, I have only been successful once in making good crisp meringues, but since I thought that pavlova supposed to have a crunchy outer crust and a soft inside, I tried using a different recipe. However, turned that this recipe was too soft, just like most other recipes I've tried. Perhaps I put the oven rack too high up because the meringue was browning too quickly, while the inside was still uncooked. Besides being too soft, it turned out alright, with a very airy and fluffy inside. For the whipped cream filling, I added rum along for additional flavour. I love using Jamaican dark rum for whipped cream, but espresso liquor is also a good substitute. I really wish I had a more fruity liquor to use though. I decorated the top with sliced strawberries and blackberries to create a rounded floral pattern.

Portugese Style Egg Tarts

Slightly burnt top

Stack of egg tarts

What I Think:
Egg tarts have to be one of the desserts that I kept trying to bake using different recipes, probably because I haven't found the 'right' one yet. This one turned out really good, with layered crust (which was a pain to make, but well worth it!). The custard wasn't too sweet, but I think I like the recipe where the custard is cooked before baked, somehow that would make the custard smoother. I tried adding some embellishment to the crust, with some success. I think I need to practice more on making pie crust.

Halloween Cupcakes!

Writings with glitter icing

A bloody foot

Candy corn trio

What I Think:
Several days before Halloween I made two dozen of Devil's food cupcake, but I didn't have much to decorate them beside the standard cream cheese frosting. The following Monday after Halloween, I managed to get a bunch of leftovers, including a glitter icing. I decided to use some of them to decorate the remaining cupcakes.

Strawberry Chiffon Cake

Cutout-view

Another sideview

What I Think:
I had some strawberries in the fridge that were starting to go bad, so I looked around for a cake recipe that uses strawberry and I found this. I think it’s supposed to be a very light and fluffy cake, however I might’ve put it in the oven for slightly too long. The cake was overcooked, and the crust was too crunchy. The strawberry taste was also barely there. If I were to make it again, I would used more strawberry and maybe drizzle it with some kind of thick strawberry sauce on top.

Amaretto Flavored Rumballs

Added some strawberries for decoration..

What I Think:
I had some extra condensed milk that has been unused for awhile, and I don’t want to let it go bad so I decided to make some rumballs! As usually, they’re quick to make and require no baking whatsoever. Last time I made rumballs, I used dark Jamaican rum, but this time I’m making it with Amaretto that I recently got. While doesn’t taste as sweet as the dark rum, the almond flavor tastes as good, if not better. I coated them with cocoa powder because I didn’t have any sprinkles and too lazy to melt some chocolate. It worked pretty well, preventing them from being sticky. However, the cocoa powder was too dusty and I got choked several times while eating it, or maybe I was eating them too fast.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Espresso Whipped Cream and Buttercream Frosting

The Lone Cupcake

I didn’t make enough buttercream frosting, so some of them were topped with the espresso whipped cream

What I think:
Lately, I loved making cupcakes with fillings, and I had excess espresso whipped cream from the pancaked I made a few days earlier so I decided to try using that as a filling for a simple lemon-vanilla cupcake recipe. At first I thought the espresso flavor might not go well with the lemon, but they turned out alright. As concord grapes were in season, I decided to use that for the topping instead of blueberries. The only downside is that concord grapes have seeds in them, which makes eating them inconvenient compared to blueberries.

Banana Chocolate Chip Pancake

What I think:
I had too much fun trying to decorate it with strawberries, concord grapes, and espresso flavored whipped cream. The whipped cream was so delicious and went well with the pancake, but unfortunately not so much with the fruit. Oh, I also tried flipping the pancake by just using the pan. Although at first I created some mess, it was very satisfying to flip the pancake up in the air!

Blueberry Lemon Bread

Added some confectioner’s sugar to decorate..

…and some blueberry topping

What I think:
Another very easy and quick bread to make. The lemon and blueberry give it a pleasant tangy and sweet flavor.

Waffles

Waffles with banana slices

Added some raspberry sauce

Cut out view of chocolate and regular waffles stack

What I think:
I was bored and didn't know what I want to eat for breakfast. So I ended up clearning my old waffle maker and made some waffles! Since I was using whatever is left at my sister's fridge, I ended up using soy milk, and it gave out an unusual taste! The recipe I used wasn't too sweet, perhaps a little bit more sugar would be nice. Oh, I also tried adding some chocolate powder on the last waffle just for the fun of it :)

Raspberry Cheesecake Brownie

Cutout View

added some raspberry decorations on the corners

View from the top

added some raspberry decorations in the center (does it look like a flower?)

another view of the raspberry 'flower'

Final view

Another final view

What I think:

The combination of taste between chocolate brownie, cheesecake, and raspberry makes a delicious cake. Unfortunately the layers are still somewhat uneven, I need to learn how to better place the batter on the pan. As you can see, we had some fun in decorating the cake, now I don't feel like actually cutting the cake... Oh, another note, take it out from the fridge 10-15 minutes before serving so that the brownie layer will soften a bit.