Having read about the Ispahan Festival that was going on at the PH Paris outlets a couple of weeks ago, I was inspired to give this macaron a second go.

The very first time I made these macarons, I found the entire combination a little too sweet and too large to finish eating in one sitting. This time, I made them smaller (about 2.5″ in diameter after baking) and reduced the amount of sugar in the macarons as well as in the rose & lychee buttercream. I was happy with the end result, although I wish I’d been brave enough to give the macaron shells a deeper colour.

I’d also put together these rose flavoured macarons to test out the buttercream. I found the rose flavour too faint and adjusted that in the cream for the mini Ispahans.

Whenever I make macarons, I find myself invariably whipping up crème brûlée just to get rid of all the egg yolks. This rich and creamy dessert is surprisingly easily to make with just a few simple ingredients - egg yolks, sugar and whipping (or heavy) cream.

I love breaking through the thin crisp caramelized surface to get to the luscious custard hidden beneath.

This version here is my favourite - vanilla bean.

Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée (Adapted from Crème Brûlée by Sara Lewis, makes 6 servings)

Ingredients
1 vanilla bean pod
2 1/2 cups whipping or heavy cream
8 egg yolks
1/4 cup fine granulated sugar
3 tbsp confectioner’s sugar

Directions
1. Place a rack on the middle rung of your oven and preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
1. Slit the vanilla bean lengthwise and put it into a medium saucepan. Pour the cream in and heat it until it almost boils. Take off the burner and allow to stand for 20 minutes for the vanilla flavour to develop.
2. Remove the vanilla bean from the cream and scrape the black seeds into the cream. Put the bean casing aside or discard it *.
3. Mix the eggs and sugar in a large bowl with a fork. Reheat the cream and gradually mix it into the eggs and sugar. Strain the mixture back into the saucepan.
4. Place 6 ramekins in a roasting pan and divide the custard between them. Pour warm water into the pan until the water comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until the custards are just set and the centre is still soft.
6. Leave the ramekins to cool in the water. Lift them out when cooled and refridgerate for 3-4 hours.
7. Sprinkle the tops with the icing sugar and cameralize with a blow torch **.
8. Leave at room temperature for 10 minutes to allow the top to harden, then serve.

* The vanilla bean casing can be rinsed and left to dry at room temperature, or in an oven at its lowest setting. Store the casing(s) in the sugar canister to flavour your sugar or grind them in a blender and mix into the sugar.

** If you don’t have a blowtorch, place the ramekins on a pan under the preheated grill in your oven with the door open. Rotate the pan to brown the custard tops evenly. This will happen quickly, so keep a close watch.

These macarons were made in the same batch as the chocolate ones. They were not as chewy as the chocolate macarons, probably because they’d dried out a little since they were baked.

The lemon buttercream filling was made with Italian meringue, some freshly squeezed lemon juice and small cubes of softened butter. The resulting buttercream was light, smooth and delightfully tangy, but it tasted more buttery than I’d expected. I’d used only 3/4 the amount of butter called for in the recipe.

Banana muffins are, in my opinion, the easiest muffins to make - all you need are some bananas, eggs, butter, sugar and flour. I’ve made this classic muffin a little more interesting with coarsely chopped walnuts and a dash of cinnamon.

Banana Muffin Recipe (makes 12 large muffins)

Ingredients
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

4 ripe bananas, mashed
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 egg & 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Line a 12 cup muffin tray with muffin cups or grease lightly with butter.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into a large bowl.
3. In another bowl, beat the mashed bananas, sugar, eggs and melted butter together.
4. Stir the banana mixture and walnuts into the flour mixture until just combined.
5. Divide the batter into the muffin tray.
6. Bake in preheated oven on the middle rack for 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

It’s been a while since my phase of macaron madness. I was recently inspired to revisit a recipe I’d seen on the eGullet forums.

I went for chocolate macarons with a twist on the ganache. The heavy cream was infused with a bag of Earl Grey tea before being gently stirred into the finely chopped chocolate.

Two important lessons I learnt rather painfully this time are:
1. Always use good quality baking paper
2. Always check my baking supplies before embarking on a baking project in the middle of the night.

I had to discard a third of this batch of macarons. While preparing the trays for the macarons, I ran out of baking paper. Since I didn’t want to run out to the closest 24-hour supermarket that late at night, I decided to use “tracing paper” instead. Normally, this works fine for cakes and cookies, but apparently not for macarons. On one tray, the paper stuck stubbornly to the bottom of the macarons after they’d baked. On another two trays, the paper puckered beneath the macaron batter, resulting in horribly deformed macaron shells - I pulled these out of the oven and chucked them before they were even done.

This only makes my current stash of these finicky french “cookies” all the more precious. I’ll be sure to savour them slowly.

All right, I confess. I don’t drink coffee. Not in any form - not hot, not cold, not blended. Whenever the waiter or waitress at a restaurant asks if I’d like a coffee or a tea to go with my dessert, it’s a no-brainer decision. There are days, however, when I crave something richer and a cup of tea just doesn’t suffice.

Those are the times when I’d ask for a cup of hot chocolate. There’s just one problem with that. Most of the time (in Singapore anyway), the “hot chocolate” is made using cocoa powder and some hot milk or worse - Hersey’s chocolate syrup stirred into tepid milk warmed in a microwave oven. Enough said.

My remedy for that - homemade hot chocolate. The hot chocolate you see here is made with real melted chocolate (I used Valrhona Manjari 64%), whole milk, some sugar and water. It’s rich, smooth and deeply satisfying. Most definitely worth the extra 20 minutes I’ll have to spend on the treadmill working it off!

I made this cake for a family event this past Saturday. It’s a variation of this cake.

The layering on the inside is the same as before - 2 layers of chocolate genoise sandwiched with a rich mascarpone cream and hidden strawberries. It’s just decorated a little differently on the outside with lady finger sponges, cocoa powder, shaved chocolate and pretty ribbons for fun.

Last night I finally came up with a way to use the 1/3 cup of dried cranberries that had been sitting in my pantry and on my conscience for the last couple of weeks. They weren’t going to go bad anytime soon, but there really isn’t much I can do with that odd amount of berries and I don’t fancy eating them just like that.

Rather than let them go to waste, I decided to be adventurous and combine the tiny cranberries, along with generous chunks of dark chocolate in a muffin batter. In the spirit of experimentation, I even substituted sour cream with low fat natural yoghurt.

The muffins were surprisingly delicious. The dark chocolate was wonderfully gooey fresh out of the oven and offset the tartness of the cranberries perfectly. This new combination is a definite keeper!

Available for Purchase: Cranberry Chocolate Chunk Muffin @ a Price of S$22 per order of 12.