It’’s been more than a month since my last post and I”ve received several e-mails from concerned readers, asking if everything’’s fine. I”m extremely grateful for your concern and am glad to report that all is well!

I”ve just been a little pre-occupied with other matters and haven”t had much time to bake something interesting enough to blog about this past month. I”ve also been revising my macaron recipe, which is why they are currently off the menu, but more about that later on in this post.

The main topic of this post isn”t entirely baking related, but it is food-related, even though it’’s not the sort of food that’’s edible.

Ever since I read about food miniatures on Carol’’s (Paris Breakfasts) blog, I”ve been fascinated by them. When they started popping up not long after on several other food blogs, I knew I had to own a set (or more) of these adorably diminutive toys.

Too impatient to order them online and wait for shipment, I did a little research online and found several shops in Singapore that carry Japanese anime products. Most of these shops also sell Re-ment and MegaHouse miniatures.

While I got my hands almost immediately on the Re-Ment ones, the widely-coveted MegaHouse Pierre Hermé Collection seemed to be out of stock at every store I called. Fortunately, I found a local online seller and I have my own set now.

I have to say that I prefer the Re-ment miniatures over the MegaHouse ones. I think it might have something to do with the fact that the novelty of owning cute tiny food toys had already worn off by the time I received the MegaHouse ones in the mail. I also found the miniatures in the MegaHouse PH Collection much smaller than the Re-ment ones, making them difficult to handle.

As for macarons, I haven”t had as much time to spend on the recipe revision as I”d hoped. So far, I”ve only had time to make peanut macarons sandwiched with dark chocolate and jelly. I preferred the ones with jelly, but I found that the filling tended to turn the macaron shells soft very quickly. Many thanks to S for the peanut and chocolate suggestion!

Other flavours, several of which are courtesy of Pierre Hermé, on my experiment list include passionfruit (with passionfruit milk chocolate ganache), chocolate (with dark chocolate yuzu ganache), violet (with cassis), lavender and ubi. I”m also contemplating the white truffle and hazelnut combination as well, but I”m not convinced yet.

I”m pretty excited about these flavours! I just hope I”ll have enough time for all of them.

While on vacation last month, I had this grand plan to bake Valentine’’s Day themed cookies when I got home: hearts, roses, butterflies, the works. But Chinese New Year celebration (and of course, the mandatory recovery period from all the over-indulgence festivities) got in the way and Valentine’’s Day has come and gone with no cookies in sight.

To make up for the slack, I decided to try baking heart-shaped Ispahan macarons, something I first saw on Flickr (at Pierre Hermé) and then again at Carousel at Royal Plaza at Scotts. I also wanted to try out the age-old flavour combination of strawberries and cream with this Pierre Hermé inspired dessert.

In keeping with the original PH Ispahan flavours, I paired fresh raspberries with raspberry cream (instead of the usual rose cream) and lychee bits. For the experimental version, I used fresh strawberries with vanilla cream and buttery shortbread pieces in the middle and assembled this combination with both 3″ heart-shaped and 3.5″ round shells. I even managed to put together a small heart-shaped macaron.

I”m completely thrilled with the results; the visual impact of both raspberry and strawberry versions is undeniable (in my opinion anyway)! I”m also very glad to report that both versions are equally wonderful tastewise! Afterall, how can one go wrong with strawberries and cream?

I definitely won”t be waiting for Valentine’’s Day to roll around before making these gorgeous little desserts again!

With Chinese New Year baking completed and no baking schedule for Valentine’’s Day, I finally had some time to make caramel fleur de sel, something that I”ve been wanting to try for the longest time.

I used Chef Pang’’s recipe, found on Chubby Hubby’’s blog, but found the resulting caramel way too salty on its own. It might have something to do with the accuracy of my digital weighing scale (I rounded up the amount of fleur de sel from 3.75g to 4g), but the next time I make this, I”m definitely cutting the sea salt down to 3g or maybe even 2g.

I really couldn”t bear to throw all that caramel away and turned it into a buttercream filling for macarons instead. I also used vanilla flavoured macaron shells made with hazelnuts instead of almonds.

I have to say that I loved the resulting flavour; slightly savoury with a deep caramel flavour that still shone through the buttercream. I included them in a box of macarons I”d made for a dinner party at WL’’s and they quickly became the most sought-after macarons, beating even the ever popular dark chocolate and opéra flavours!

These are definitely going onto the menu!

Caramel Fleur de Sel Recipe (adapted from Chef Pang’’s version)

Ingredients
200g sugar
Sufficient quantity water
1/2 tsp pure vanilla bean paste or 1 vanilla pod
200g whipping cream, warmed
3g fleur de sel
140g unsalted butter, well-chilled and cut into cubes

Method
1. Place the sugar in a heavy-bottom saucepan. Add just enough water to dampen the sugar.
2. Cook the sugar to 160 degrees C without stirring. The sugar syrup should take on an amber hue.
3. Take the saucepan off the heat and stir in the vanilla bean paste or the scrappings from the vanilla pod.
4. Add in the warm cream a little at a time - be very careful here as the caramel will foam up and sputter. I recommend wearing an oven mitt.
5. Add the fleur de sel and stir to make sure that all the caramel has dissolved.
6. Allow the mixture to cool to around 40 degrees C.
7. Add the cubes of butter and blend in the butter using an immersion blender until you have a smooth glossy paste.
8. Line the surface of the caramel with cling wrap to prevent a layer of skin from forming and chill in the refrigerator until needed.