End-of-April Mac Sale

I mentioned in my previous post (First Macaron Sale) that I'd have the macaron sale once a month. This week is the last week of April and I'm having my second mac sale already. Why? Because next week is finals week and I'll be extremely busy. Anyway, this time the flavors are banana caramel, green tea, apricot white chocolate, avocado chocolate, and lychee. The most interesting one for me is the avocado chocolate because I based the flavor on my favorite juice ever since I was a kid: avocado juice! It is a common beverage in Indonesia and is usually made by blending fresh avocados, sweetened condensed milk, and chocolate syrup. So, I made the buttercream with similar ingredients and the resulting flavor was close to the juice's. The most difficult one to make was lychee. I wanted to infuse as much lychee flavor as I could to the buttercream, but it was impossible without using lychee extract. To solve this problem, I added lychee juice to the buttercream and mixed in almond powder to keep it from turning into soup. Then, I made lychee jelly and pushed a piece of it into the center of the buttercream. I could taste the lychee in the macaron, I hope my customers can taste it too :)

Here are the pics!!

Cake and DEFENSE!!

It's that time of year when graduating grad students become anxious and work like crazy. Yes, it's time for defense! What I mean by defense here is the final presentation for grad students in which they defend their thesis research. After countless hours of preparation and practice, my boyfriend and labmate passed their defense presentations this week. What can heal a tired soul better than cake? None! So, I baked cakes for them to replenish their blood sugar and well.. just to celebrate. For my boyfriend, I made his absolute favorite cake: fruity cream cake. Basically, it's two layers of genoise cake with creme chiboust and fruits in between. I used only strawberries because that's what I had in the fridge, but you can use any fruits you want. The cake was airy, creamy, fruity, vanilla-ey.. In short, it's c'est magnifique if I dare to say so myself :)

I attempted to draw the square graduation hat with chocolate buttercream, but it turned out looking like an old telephone. Oh well, taste is more important :p

As for my labmate, I had to make a cake that did not need refrigeration, did not need any dishes to eat it, was sturdy enough so that it wouldn't fall apart during transport (me walking to my lab), but still tasted good. Solution: cupcakes! I used the same genoise batter for the cupcakes and they rose beautifully creating little domes upon baking. I then topped them with apricot cream cheese frosting and decorated them with some sugar pearls. Yummmm, love those cupcakes :)

Earl Grey Chocolate Chip Ice Cream & Macaron Ice Cream Sandwich

Got some leftover shells and earl grey dark chocolate ganache from making macarons, so I decided to use it to make ice cream. Just mix the ganache with regular vanilla ice cream base and stir in some mini chocolate chips before freezing. The result was not bad.. I could still taste the earl grey and the chocolate chip was a nice touch. I sandwiched the ice cream between two macaron shells to make macaron ice cream sandwiches. They're sooo cute! Too bad I only have black macaron shells left, I think it will be much cuter if the color is brighter :(