Peanut macarons with blueberry filling

The first time that I tried to bake french macarons was in the last year. I had never tasted them before I baked, and the first bite was something other than impression. I found the shells are extrem sweet ... too sweet for me. Since then I never baked it again until the past 2 months.

I began to bake macarons again. This time with many different flavors such as raspberry, lemon, banana, poppy seed, vanilla and so on. One of my favorite flavor is this peanut macarons with blueberry butter cream filling .

Ingredients : for around 40 shells

For the macarons shells :
40g roasted ground peanuts
40g ground almonds
130g powdered sugar
70g egg white (about 2 egg whites, M size)
1 pinch salt
20g granulated sugar
green food colouring

For the blueberry filling :
15 fresh blueberries
15g granulated sugar
2 tbsp. orange juice
70g butter
15g powdered sugar

Instructions :

Line the bottom of baking tray with parchment paper. Combine ground peanut, ground almond and powdered sugar together, put them in the blender und grind until finely ground. Then sift them through a sieve, set aside.

Put egg whites, salt and food colouring together in the bowl, whisk until foamy and slowly beat in the granulated sugar until egg whites having soft peaks form.

Gently fold about 1/3 of dry mixture in the foamy egg whites by using rubber spatula until incorporated. Repeat with the further 1/3 of dry mixture into the batter and fold in, then the rest of dry mixture, just until the mixture getting shiny and flow like magma. Do not over mix.

Fit the pastry bag with a round tip. Fill the batter in the bag and pipe about 3 cm small rounds onto the parchment lined baking trays. Tap the underside of the baking trays to remove air bubbles. Let the shells dry for 20-30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 150 celsius and when the oven is ready place the tray in the middle of the oven and bake for about 10 minutes or until firm. Whereas, use a wooden spoon to keep the oven door slightly ajar through the baking time.

Take the tray out from the oven and let the shells cool for awhile before remove them from the parchment paper. Place the shells on a wire rack untill completely cool and fill with the blueberry filling.

For the filling, wash blueberries and cut in half. Put them in a small pot, add in granulated sugar and orange juice. Place the pot on the medium heat and regularly stir until it cooked. Let it cooks for about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the jam cool.

Then using an electric mixer, beat butter until pale and fluffy, then gradually beat in powdered sugar until combined. Stir in cooled blueberry jam in the butter untill well combined. Finally, sandwich the macaroons shells with blueberry butter cream.

Place in the refrigerator for a few hours to have a better flavor and bring them out for 15 minutes before serving. Enjoys your macarons!

Fried Tofu with ground pork : ผัดเต้าหู้หมูสับ

My husband is not only a carnivora, (Ha! Ha!) but he is also a fan of all kinds of tofus. It doesn't matter if it's soft, firm or dry tofu. This time, I chose firm tofu for my dish.

Ingredients : for 2 person
150g firm tofu
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
60g ground pork
1 clove garlic
2 chillies
1/2 carrot
1 tbsp. oyster sauce
1 tbsp. thin soy sauce
1/2 tbsp. dark sweet soy sauce
1/4 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. chicken stock
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 green onions

Instructions :
Cut Tofu into a bite-sized and wipe them up with the paper towel. Peel Garlic and finely chop. Peel carrot and cut into thin sticks. Wash chilli and chop it also finely. Peel onion and cut in stripe. Wash green onion roots and cut in about 2cm long.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan on medium heat. When oil is hot, put tofu to fry until it's getting brawn on each side. Remove from the pan and drain on the paper towel.

Fry garlic (with the left oil from frying tofu) until fragant. Add in ground pork and stir-fry until the ground pork is cooked. Add carrot, season with chilli, oyster sauce, thin soy sauce, dark sweet soy sauce, sugar and chicken stock, stir well.

Add in tofu, stir until combined with all ingredients. Finally, add in pepper and green onion, stir well and turn off the heat. Serve warm with rice.

Apple in love : รักน้องเปิ้ล

I have many recipes of apple cake and I find all of them are great. Anyway, I used to bake this one most frequently. I love the moist and fluffy of the cake, the taste that not too sweet and also the wonderful aroma of apple, cinnamon and rum. If you like apple cake, you shouldn't miss to try this recipe.

Ingredients :

• 200g apples (peeled, cored and coarsely chopped)
  
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice
  
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
  
• 2-3 drops rum-aroma
  
• 100g butter
  
• 90g sugar (A)
  
• 2 egg yolks
  
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  
• 110g cake flour
  
• 1 tsp. baking powder
  
• 60 ml milk
• 2 egg whites
  
• 1 pinch salt
  
• 20g sugar (B)

Instructions :

• Combine apples, lemon juice, ground cinnamon and rum-aroma together, set aside. Then mix together the cake flour and baking powder, two times sifting and set aside. Grease the muffin pan lightly with butter. Preheat the oven to 160°C.
  
• Whisk the butter by using an electric hand whisk until smooth, then gradually add in sugar(A) and whisk until the butter is creamy and fluffy. Add egg yolks all at once and vanilla extract to the creamy butter and whisk until incorporated.
  
• Divide the flour into 4 equal parts and divide milk into 3 equal parts. Then stir the flour alternatively with milk in the butter mixture just until incorporated, stop stirring.
  
• In another mixing bowl, beat the egg whites with salt until foamy. Gradually add in sugar and whisk with high speed until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in the foamy egg whites into the mixture. Finally, stir in apples.
  
• Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan. Lay an apple piece which cut in heart shape on the top. Place the muffin pan in the middle of oven and bake for approximately 30 minutes. Take it out from the oven and rest in the pan about 5 minutes before remove from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool.

Apricot Roll Cake : โรลแอพริคอท

I once accidentally dropped by a very creative baker's blog. The name of blog's owner is Aunty Yochana http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2007/06/apricot-swiss-roll.html . I saw her apricot swiss rolls. They look so pretty and yummy. So I cadged her idea and baked with my flavorite chiffon's recipe. Thank you auntyyochana for this motivation.

Ingredients :

• 60g cake flour
  
• 1 tsp. baking powder
  
• 35g granulated sugar
  
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  
• 2 large egg yolks
  
• 30g canola oil
  
• 45g Milk
  
• 2 large egg whites
  
• 20g castor sugar
  
• 1/2 tsp. lemon juice
  
• 1 pinch salt
  
• 4 dried apricots
• 100 g heavy cream
• 1 tbsp. vanilla sugar
  
• 2 tbsp. apricot jam
  
• melted chocolate for decoration

Instructions :

• Cut apricots into thin sticks. Lay a baking tray (22 cm x 32cm) with baking paper and line apricot sticks on the tray. Preheat the oven to 190°C.
• Mix together the cake flour and baking powder, two times sifting into a mixing bowl and make a hole in the middle of the flour. Add egg yolks, granulated sugar, vanilla, oil and milk into the flour hole, stir the mixture together until smooth. (stir it quickly and shouldn't take longer than 5 seconds to stirring)
• In another mixing bowl, beat egg whites with salt and lemon juice until foamy. Gradually add in sugar and whisk with high speed until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in the foamy egg whites into eggyolk mixture.
  
• Pour the batter in the prepared baking tray and spreading the batter with an offset spatula. Put it in the oven and bake for about 10 minutes. To test if the cake is ready, just press the finger lightly on the center of the cake, if it spring back, that's mean, it's should be so far.
• Hold the baked cake out from the oven and allow it to cool off for 1-2 minutes , then roll up the cake laxly while it is still hot and pliable.
• Beat heavy cream with sugar about 2 minutes or until stiff peaks form. Unroll the cake and spread with the apicot jam, then spread with the cream above and reroll the cake. Cover with the baking paper and place in the refrigerator for 2 hours before serving.
  
• Lightly sprinkle with the powdered sugar before slice the cake the way you like.

Berries Topping : เบอรี่ท็อปปิ้ง

I bake Japanese souffle cheesecake quite often at the moment. And the best topping for this kind of cake in my opinion is berries topping. I usually bought the berries topping before, but it's sommer time now. There're many kinds of berries I can buy at a reasonable price in the supermarket. That's why, I decided to do it myself. It's such an easy thing to do and it tastes so fresh and so good.

Ingredients :

• 150g raspberries
• 150g red currents
• 150g sour cherries, pitted
• 150g strawberries
• 200g sugar
• 500 ml water
• 350 ml red current juice (or cherry juice)
• 80g cornstarch

Instructions :

• Wash rashpberries and red currents, wipe them up with the paper towel. Wash cherries and pitt. Wash strawberries, then cut a green stem and divide into 4 equal parts.
• Take half of all berries and put it the pot. Add in sugar and 375ml of water. Place the pot on a middle heat and let it cook about 10 minutes. Then turn off the heat and blend. Pour through a fine strainer and press the pulp intensely with the spoon.
• Pour the fluidity of berries in the measuring tube and refill with red current juice just to 1 liter (all together) Bring the pot on a middle heat until boiled, reduce the heat.
• Mix the rest of water and cornstarch together, stir until starch dissolve. Pour in the berry pot under permanent stirring until parboiled. Add in the rest fruits, stir and parboil for 1 minute. Take the pot from the stove and let it cool at the room temperature and keep in the refrigerator.