I’d been planning on making these cookies since late January, but never got round to it. After teaching a one-on-one decorated cookie class (and dusting off my cookie cutters) just last week, I was once again reminded of the plan I’d shelved in favour of Valentine’s Day macarons.

The wonderful thing about cookie decorating is that you’re free to embellish the cookies in any way you please. To me, an undecorated cookie is like a clean sheet of canvas, just screaming to be painted on. And the icing on the cookie (sorry, I couldn’t resist!) is this: If you’re unhappy with your masterpiece, you can just eat it and no one would be any wiser! Absolutely no waste and completely environmentally friendly too. :o)

A simple heart-shaped cookie can be personalised with the recipient’s name, a simple message or ornately decorated with dots, swirls and curls.

Don’t have much time to mess around with detailed icing? Simply flood your cookies with runny consistency royal icing. This lovely idea for a simple trio of baby hearts comes from Peggy Porschen’s delightful book, Romantic Cakes. I think they make excellent wedding favours!

Preferring something a little more ornate myself, I also made butterflies, decked out in pure white. A pair of these would make the perfect wedding favour! And where there are butterflies, there’d also be flowers.

I went with tulips, complete with leaves and stems. These do take a little more time to make, but the dramatic end results are completely worth the effort!

And since I already had the cookie dough all rolled out and the royal icing all prepared, I didn’t think it would hurt to try out wedding cake and birthday cake designs. My favourite detail on these cookies are the candles on the birthday cake. And once again, I have Peggy Porschen to thank for these wonderful ideas. :o)

If you’re already sick of looking at cookies by now, I’m afraid my cookie decorating madness isn’t quite over yet. There are more cookie cutters on their way in the mail. I can’t wait for them to arrive!

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.