While I’m estastic about the overwhelming response to the macarons I’ve put up for sale and grateful beyond words to my repeat customers, I have to admit that I’m completely exhausted. I’ve just come off an entire week of doing not much else besides baking and sandwiching macarons.

I don’t know how other bloggers selling their macarons are managing, but for me, making 6 different flavours per day is no mean feat. It’s especially challenging when I have to make various flavours of buttercream, nut pastes, nut praline and chocolate ganache for the fillings, all in a single day. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that I’m not a fast worker in the kitchen.

In order not to end up with less than perfect macarons due to having to churn out too many flavours each day, I’ve had to turn away potential customers, something which I’m loathe to do since I really don’t want to disappoint anyone who’d like to try them.

This is why I’m toying with the idea of a baking schedule. This amounts to offering 4 fixed flavours (e.g. chocolate, rose, opera, green tea on Mondays, apricot, raspberry, black sesame, hazelnut chocolate on Tuesdays etc) for each day of the week from which customers pick the 3 that they fancy. This way, customers get well-made macarons while I get to preserve my sanity.

I think this could be a win-win situation, no? Feel free to let me know what you think and which flavours you think would work well together!

Incidentally, based on the responses I’ve received about how much filling you like in your maccies, all of you like your maccies the same way I like mine - with a huge dollop of filling!

I’ve finally gotten round to assembling the mango mousse cake that I’d planned to make a couple of weeks ago. I think I’ve just managed to catch the tail end of the mango season.

This cake is made up of alternating layers of springy sponge cake and mango mousse, topped with a layer of mango jelly, which I made using fresh mango puree and a dash of lemon juice to prevent the deep orange colour from turning brown.

For the sponge cake, I used a recipe from my mum’s cake recipe collection. The recipe makes a very “spongey” and soft cake. I’ll definitely be using it as a base for all my sponge cake recipes in the future.

For the mousse and jelly, I adapted Jo’s mango mousse / mango mirror recipes listed in Imperial Kitchen (a local food forum), using gelatine leaves instead of gelatine powder and adjusting the amount of whipped cream in the mousse. It was my first time using gelatine leaves and I got a little worried when the jelly showed no sign of thickening after I’d added the gelatine. In my overzealousness, I think I may have added one leaf too many, resulting in a jelly layer that was a little less sweet than I’d have liked.

Still, I loved the overall look, texture, taste and aroma of this cake. I especially liked the fact that the cake is entirely covered with mousse, without any unsightly layering on the sides. Thanks Jo for sharing your recipes!

This is the new and improved black sesame macarons with black sesame paste filling. I’ve swapped the white sesame seeds for black ones in the filling because of its slightly bitter aftertaste. I’d also thrown some decorative seeds on some of the shells before baking as an experiment. I’d put the seeds on only after baking in my previous attempt as I was worried that they’d burn in the oven.

I loved the fragrantly nutty flavour of this macaron. It’s now my second most favourite flavour after the dark chocolate ones.

These were some extras from a batch I’d baked for an order. Since I’m completely addicted to these little confections, it’s quite obvious where these maccies ended up and no wonder that my waistline is expanding these days!