An Exciting World of Fondant

To all of you who celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year: GONG XI FAT CHOI!". I am sending this post from Singapore over my long Chinese New Year holiday in this marvelous country. Yes, taking the annual leave from work and at the same time collecting information and finding resources for my new inspiration.

I don't know whether anyone of you have had experienced thinking about what would be next after all those blogs posted over the years. I have, and a new idea hit me recently after reading through some articles posted on Singapore Strais Times Online regarding the trend of customized decorated cakes, or to be more specific customized fondant decorated cakes in Singapore.



While fondant or also known as rolled sugar paste has been popular for a long time in US and European countries, it is rather new in Thailand or some other Asian countries. I have envied enjoying photos of fondant decorated cakes in hundreds of baking books and posts on the Internet, but always faced despair over the fact that fondant is a rare ingredient to find in Bangkok. Ever since my failure on developing fondant on my own last year, I never took the initiative of looking at it, ever again...... until now.

However recently I pledged to myself that I would work through this obstable and take a new step into an extremely exciting fondant world where colors are vivid, ruffles are almost so real, gum-paste flowers are so natural, and graphics find no limits. After a long indulgence in the variety of baking, it is now time to focus on improving the decorations on cakes and throw many real colors!!



Friends and blogger fellows, I wish for your mental support on this new endeavor :-) A new sweet friend, Kate of Sweet Artisan has been providing valuable information on fondant and all, and she is the fondant artists I have found and interacted with in Thailand. Go and check out her beautiful works.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Happy New Year, everyone! Wish you all lots of luck and joy, great health and success! Hope you have had a great new year holiday with your loved ones, family and friends!

It took me a while getting back to blogging. After my family trip was over and they all left last week, I was spending time cleaning up the house, taking good rest, and settling back to my old life. While these three things were accomplished, I realized it was about time to make new year resolutions, something I hadn’t allocated my time for due to the trip. It was about time to plan for my life in 2011!



I was glad that my family members were all happy with the trip. We had time exploring the beautiful mountain resort at Phuchifah, the relaxing beach resort at HuaHin, engaged ourselves in the intensive shopping marathon - something of which Bangkok is well known for, and most of all indulged in Thai cuisine. And with T’s presence in the trip, my family had learnt more about Thai culture. Can’t wait to have another trip with them next year!

Daring Bakers' Milan Cookies

This particular challenge reminded me of baking macaron. Well, the piped batter looked like macaron but the flattening effect and final result resembled baking lady finger.

Despite the early thought of baking just Mallows recipe, I ended baking both and felt totally pleased making the decision to bake this very special Milan cookies. The recipe is easy to follow and the process is straight forward. Don’t know whether anyone of you ever baked Hokkaido Snow White Cookies which are 2 very thin pieces of butter cookies sandwiched with a layer of white chocolate. The outcome is pretty close even though the latter is done by rolling and cutting dough instead of piping.



The blend of vanilla and lemon extract brought the best out of this cookies. Having said that I think you shouldn’t miss trying out this recipe if you ever think about baking for an afternoon tea. Thanks to Nicole from Sweet Tooth for selecting this simple yet fabulous recipe!

The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

This recipe is courtesy of Gale Gand. Have made some adjustments for my own convenience. The original recipe can be found here.



MILAN COOKIES
Makes 47 pieces

1. Cookies

Ingredients:
- Salted butter – soften in room temperature > 85 grams
- Icing sugar > 130 grams
- Egg whites > 3
- Vanilla essence > 1 tablespoon
- Lemon essence > 1 tablespoon
- All purpose flour > 94 grams



Method:
- Preheat oven to 180C.
- Cream butter and icing sugar until pale.
- Add egg white gradually and then mix in vanilla and lemon essence.
- Fold in flour and mix well.
- With a small (1/4 inch) plain tip, pipe 1 inch sections of batter onto parchment-lined tray, spacing them 1.5 inches apart as they spread.
- Bake at 180C for 8 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on tray.



2. Chocolate Filling

Ingredients:
- Semi sweet chocolate – chop > 120 grams
- Whipping cream > 54 grams
- Orange zest > ½ orange



Method:
- Prepare chocolate in a bowl.
- In a small saucepan scald cream over medium fire.
- Pour hot cream into chocolate bowl. Whisk to melt chocolate. Add zest and mix well.
- Set aside to cool. The mixture will be thick.



3. Assembly

- Spread a thin amount of chocolate filling onto the flat side of a cookie.
- Press the flat side of the second cookie on top of filling.