Christmas Sweets

It's December already...wheeww..Time flies so quickly. I haven't been blogging for so long. I've been spent my time for doing my baking project and  feel so lazy to write down about it. It's like that I've been so tired sometime and ended up with relaxing my body in my bed instead of turning on my laptop after doing some bakes.

Okay, since it's December so of course it's time to celebrate Christmas. I always love Christmas..Those red and green colors in everything always lift up my mood. Welcoming this holiday season I've baked some sweet Christmas treats like ginger cookies, macarons, and cupcakes.

For Christmas ginger cookies I used some mixed spice from ginger powder, cinnamon, clove, and star anise. The cookies smell so good even I only put 3 teaspoon of the mixed spice for every 2 cups of  flour. I used a meringue powder for the royal icing instead of a raw egg white. This is the first time I used a meringue powder and I am happy with the result.

My Christmas macarons consist of two flavors, chocolate mint and chocolate spice. I'm still looking for better idea for more Christmassy flavor :). And I think the green one is not to green. I want it more green. I guess I have to use a powder food coloring.

And of course Christmas themed cupcakes will cheer up the holiday feeling with cute figurines and decorations. I made vanilla cupcake with blueberry feeling and chocolate cupcake with silky chocolate ganache. So yummy!

I know it's too early to say but I just want to wish you Merry Christmas! Have a happy holiday! ^_^

Black Tea Vanilla Macaroon

I must admit that I'm quite obsessed with this little french confectionery.. It's so beautiful to look at and also good to eat..Last Monday, I made these black tea vanilla macarons. The flavor combination of black tea and vanilla is so great. Unfortunately I was failed making the black tea butter cream filling, well instead of it, I used a simple vanilla butter cream with a few drops of honey and rhum..*happy :) *


I would love to use real vanilla beans for my baking, but I've found vanilla pods are not common here. It's ironic since Indonesia is one of the main producers of vanilla, but they are not available here in any supermarkets. The ones I used in this picture were bought somewhere in Bandung, and when I came back a couple of months ago to buy some more, I found the stock is zero. Where can I get vanilla pods then? I know there are some vanilla plantations in West Java and North Sulawesi, but it seems once the pods are harvested, they are being exported to other countries. And what is left to us? Nothing... :(

My macaroons....

Setelah beberapa kali mencoba dan diakhiri dengan kegagalan akhirnya saya berhasil juga mendapatkan "kaki" si macaroon.. Belum sempurna sih memang dan kyknya perlu latihan lagi mumpung saya punya stok putih telur yang banyak..hehehe...

Kali ini saya mencoba membuat green tea macaroon yang dikasi filling-nya cream cheese..mmmm..next time rasanya lebih cocok kalo isi macaroon ini pake mascaporne cheese deh..I think it will taste better..

Berhubung saya penggemar coklat, chocolate macaroon ini paling saya suka karena the chocolate really goes well with the sweetness of macaroon..
Peer berikutnya nyoba bikin macaroon dengan teknik italian meringue method for a better texture plus variasi rasa....love this macaroon!

Japanese Cheesecake with cream cheese filling

Temenku, Linda, suka banget sama cheesecake..Request blio buat ulang tahunnya harus ciskeik...Jadi pas ulang tahunnya kemarin aku bikinin dia Japanese Cheesecake yang tengahnya aku kasi cream cheese filling trus di-frosting sm sisa cream cheese-nya plus ditaburin keju cheddar parut...yuuummmy...serba keju semua deh...


Parutan kejunya agak berantakan...hihi...maklum pemula...satu kue ngabisin satu batang keju sendiri...^^
Untung di rumah ada strawberry gede2 kyk gini jadi bikin manis kuenya..hehehe...*kucing muji ekor judulnya*



Mbak Linda yang hepi dpt kue plus bunga mawar...^_^

Moist Chocolate Cake

Last Saturday was my friend’s (Febry) birthday. His friends and I were planning to surprise him by giving him a birthday cake. So I made this moist chocolate cake from a recipe that I’ve found in the internet (because I was dying to try this recipe but never had an opportunity to make an experiment of it..:))

This cake is using a buttermilk and vegetable oil instead of butter. That’s why it’s called moist chocolate cake because usually a vegetable oil-based cake is moister compare to the butter one. When the baking was done, I found out that the cake had a lot of crumbs and I had a difficulty when I tried to trim it and to spread the chocolate ganache on every layer of the cake. Oh no…and it’s getting worse when I poured the ganache over the cake, I couldn’t do it smoothly. The result was beyond my expectation of what my cake was going to be. So I felt really unsatisfied and tried very hard to fix it. The first attempt was failed so I tried to give it shot one more time but then again it’s failed and even worse. I was so depressed that day. .:(..I tried to calm myself down and to think what I should do to cover the side of the cake because I’ve run out of chocolate and it’s late already so there were no stores were opened. I was looking in my refrigerator and (thank God) found a box of chocolate. The expensive one actually..:) but I didn’t care as long as it could help me to fix the cake. I melted the chocolate and made a chocolate fence from it and placed the chocolate fence surrounding all over the cake. Well, I was quite relieved then. By the way, I forget to tell you that the cake was so tall (thanks to the buttermilk and a baking soda that I used) that’s why it needed a lot of chocolate :)

The next day my friend picked me up to meet everyone. I was quite worried that they would not like my cake. So I told them what had happened when I made the cake. They were laughing and joking that they wanted to get a discount..but when the time to show the cake had come, they said that they liked the cake very much. I was so happy knowing that. Well, but I guess I won’t make this kind of cake for the next time. I will stick to my mom’s chocolate cake recipe that I love so much..:)

Chocolate Melted Brownie

I just made this scrumptious chocolate melted brownie.. so yummmmyyy...and very chocolaty!!! It’s so easy to make and it also doesn’t take much time. You know, I’m always craving for a nice sweet dessert, so when I don’t have any, I will make one immediately…blame it on my sweet tooth :)) . I consider myself as a dessert person, because I always have a dessert first before the main course..LOL..(especially when it’s a chocolate kind of dessert).

Well, back to the chocolate melted brownie..I really love to make this brownie because it doesn’t need a mixer and it’s quick to bake. You only have to melt the butter (I prefer to mix the butter with margarine 1:1) with the dark chocolate and then you add sugar, flour, cocoa powder, and egg with a teaspoon of vanilla. Mix them well and pour half of the batter into the baking pan, add some easy melt chocolates as many as you like, and then pour again the rest of the batter. Bake it for 20 minutes and voila!! Here comes the brownie..Bon appétit!

Chocolate Macaroon

A sweet treat from French..creamy and chewy meringue biscuit that melts in your mouth...
Di luarnya crispy tapi teksturnya di dalamnya tuh empuk-empuk chewy...yuummm...
Bikinnya susahh...Terbuat dari putih telur, gula, coklat, dan almond bubuk. Trus dikasi filling chocolate ganache deh...Resepnya aku dapet dari sini
Macaroon ini bisa macem-macem rasanya dan warna-warni kyk yang di Ladurée..hihi...lucu-lucu bgt dee...
Macaroon-ku ini permukaanya kok kurang smooth yaa...sampe berapa kali nyoba juga teteup ajah ga bagus...ihiksss...stl bbrp kali nyoba akhirnya berhasil ada "kakinya" (tapi fotonya blum diupload..) walopun permukaanya retak..I don't know why...kemungkinan karena aku biarin di AC yang dingin smp kebentuk hard shell trus langsung dimasukin oven panas (yang rada kepanasan siy menurutku)...
Coba lagi aahh...penasaran sm macaroon ini...