Hanging Out

As a young girl growing up in Ipoh we had no internet and no hand phones.  Our needs to socialize were usually expressed in specific terms of having a purpose that would satisfy our parent's queries. Today it is much more common to hear the term "hanging out" expressed by young people or at least from those that escape from their video games, iPhones, and laptops to meet friends in person. As adults we don't use the term "hanging out" very much. Perhaps that is because we need the assurance of purpose for everything we choose to do. Maybe we are just looking  for reasons to get  together so as to avoid stating the obvious. We need socialization. We also need to socialize in the presence of company we enjoy and have a common ground with. The study of socialization (sociology) reaffirms over and over that our existence depends on it.  As frequent readers know, I enjoy writing about meeting fellow bloggers in person. Maybe the sociologist are right, maybe my existence depends on it in some way. So "hanging out" has a huge payback.


I first met Yen and her hubby of the blog Eat your heart out when I was conducting a cooking class in Pantry Magic, in Bangsar.  She approached me and asked if I was Quay Po and introduced herself. We chatted, and right away I knew this bright young lady was a warm and friendly person. From then on, we have visited each other's blog frequently and  exchanged comments. We recently "became friends" on Facebook and exchanged notes often. It was not long before we decided to meet up and "hang out". She asked me if I would like to meet another blogger Mei Yee of I am the Witch and of course, I indicated I would be delighted to. I always love to meet new friends, especially people who share the same passion  - food. To me Facebook and blogs will never replace meeting someone in person. We lose a lot of communication and risk being misunderstood when confined to the internet. Our tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language all are lost on the internet. Meeting Yen and Mei Yee was as expected, a sheer delight.

The night before our meet up for tea at The Sheraton Imperial...

I made some macarons with a kumquat, dark chocolate and cointreau filling  to let Yen sample it as promised.

 Click on the photo to get the recipe

I made sure I had enough for each person to have two and a little extra, just in case they loved them. 


Being resourceful ladies, both Yen and Mei Yee had a Starwood discount card each so we only had to pay 50% of the price per head for the high tea. However the rule was, we had to sit in two separate tables. (HUH!?)  That seemed rediculous to us and we finally need not comply after speaking to the Manager in charge. The place was rather empty and we understood why after tasting the pastry. There were not many choices served and the only item offered that we all agreed  was delicious were the mini donuts. We had no complaints about the presentation but looks can be deceiving.

My macarons became the “Star” of the day, perhaps largely because the competition was so inferior. Each of them had two and they said they love them. Yen’s hubby’s remark was even more encouraging, he stated they were much higher standard in appearance, taste, and texture than many they had purchased from commercial outlets. (What a bright and charming young man!)

We spent a cheerful afternoon together, forgetting that the food was not up to our expectation and since we did not have to pay full price for it, we did not feel short changed, for we think the ambience was perfect for a nice hang out. It was great getting to know Yen, her hubby  and meet another new friend, Mei Yee, another lovely young lady, and we all seemed to have lots to talk about despite our age difference. As if spending three hours yakking were not enough, Yen asked me to tag along with them to a happy hour cocktail food tasting for Bloggers, at Al Amar Express in the city. There I ran into my friend, Cheng Yi of Have your Cake and Eat It Too and met some other bloggers for the first time. They were a group of chirpy and fun loving people. We had a ball.

I got to sample some of the Lebanese food, their free flow cocktail drinksand wine as well. This of course led to much laughter and enjoyment. I loved their range of wine, 

affordable and good. 

All the above food was reasonably priced and everything tasted delicious.  To me, it would be great value for money. I will definitely go there again with my Quay Lo. It is a great place to meet up with friends after a hard day's work. Not only will you get great food, inventive and colorful cocktails as well as an excellent range of affordable and delightful Lebanese wine, the staff there, including the chef, the sales and marketing director, Ralph and the owner, Joseph, are all very friendly. 

The whole team knew how to please their customers and make them feel extremely welcome. I suspect that if you visit Al Amar Express just once, it likely will not be your last visit. 

Al-Amar Express

Fahrenheit88

Lot G44, Ground Floor,

179, Jalan Bukit Bintang,

55100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Tel no: +603-2141 3814

Opening hours: 8am to 1am Daily (opens til 5am on weekends)

Email: info@al-amar.com

Website: http://www.al-amar.com/ Facebook Page


No fees or promotionl considerations were received and
my remarks are purely my own.

WOW! I got GOOSIES!!

I should sub title this entry as "Tooting My Own Horn" but I admit it...I just cannot help myself. Last Saturday was a very happy day for me. I got up early in the morning to make some macarons because an ardent reader and I were meeting for the first time. We were set to have lunch together at the Empire Subang. I wanted to let her taste my macarons.

We had lunch at a newly opened Thai restaurant. The food was just so-so, but it did not bother us because we had such a great time chatting. In a delightful coincidence, the new friend turned out to be the daughter of the midwife that had delivered me (so many moons ago). Her name is Cindy and she is a very pleasant lady and so warm and friendly that it felt more like meeting an old friend.  She was so thoughtful and generous and had brought a lovely set of earrings and a necklace as a gift for me. What a delightful surprise  and I loved both the design and the color. I wore them to lunch yesterday. I think they matched my purple blouse. Thanks so much again, Cindy. 


As we were having lunch, a young lady came over to our table and asked me if I am Veron and introduced herself as Adrine. She is also a food blogger and a regular reader of my blog. It was a great pleasure to meet her and her family. What a small world this is!   


After our lunch, Cindy and I went window shopping together and then I asked her to tag along to watch a "Berries pie" demo at Jaya Grocers by the young and handsome Chef Ryan Khang.  Chef Khang is quite an accomplished chef. He had written his first book in 2006 and had worked as a consultant chef for a chain restaurant where he had developed new menus and supervised production. Currently he is the resident chef of The Cooking House and the editor-in-chief of a food and health journal called Malaysian Nourishment.

When I met Chef Khang, I offered him a piece of my macaron with my newly invented fillings that was suggested by my Quay Lo. What he said to me sent me to cloud 9! As soon as he took the first bit of my macaron, he said, "This is a French macaron, did you age the egg white for 7 days? What is the filling? This is very good!" I told him it was a filling I invented, kumquat preserves with dark chocolate and cointreau. He told me he had just returned from Paris and had tasted lots of macs while there and mine was better than the Dulce de Leche macarons he had there!! OH MY GOODNESS!! someone please pinch me and tell me that I am not dreaming!  When I felt my feet just about to touch back down to the ground, he sent right back to cloud 9. He asked if I would like to contribute an article to the Malaysian Nourishment food and health journal. I think he must be joking.

Me? write an article for a food magazine? I can hardly believe that. Wow! I got goosies all over!! Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to get a picture with this young handsome chef who is so kind to offer his opinion on my macarons (especially since it was favorable).

I am eager to share with you the new fillings recipe because it must be good when the compliment comes from a chef. 

Vanilla Macarons with kumquat dark 

chocolate and cointreau fillings

Vanilla Macaron shells:

83 grams icing sugar

64 grams ground almonds

53 grams egg whites (about 2 small eggs), aged for 48 hrs at room temperature

28 grams granulated sugar

coloring (optional)

½ tsp vanilla extract

Method to make the shells: (click to see the step-by-step photos)

Sift almond flour and icing sugar into a mixing bowl and set aside.

The old lady at work with Ranger keeping an eye 

to make sure everything was done correctly. LOL!

Please ensure the mixture is dry is entirely dry. After it is well mixed, add in coloring and blend in. In a large clean, dry bowl whip egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Increase the speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar. Continue to whip to ALMOST stiff peaks like in the photo. With a flexible spatula, gently fold in almond and icing sugar mixture into egg whites until completely incorporated. The mixture should be shiny and 'flow like magma.' When small peaks dissolve to a flat surface, stop mixing. Fit a piping bag with a 3/8-inch (1 cm) round tip. Pipe the batter onto the baking sheets lined with parchment paper and try to have equal size circles. If you want to have uniform size of shells, draw circles before you pipe. 

I am so happy that I finally got 

these shells to look more decent

Tap the underside of the baking sheet to remove air bubbles. Let dry at room temperature for 1 or 2 hours to allow skins to form or when you gently touch the top of the batter, it does not stick to your finger. Place baking sheet into another bigger baking sheet. Bake, in a preheated 140°C oven for 20 minutes. Remove macarons from oven and transfer parchment paper to a cooling rack. When cool, slide a metal offset spatula or pairing knife underneath the macaron to remove from parchment paper.

Note: if the batter is overmixed, you will get flat shells and if it is undermixed, you will get Dolly Partons (click link to find out why Dolly Partons). LOL! So, be mindful when you mix the batter. 

Fillings recipe:

Kumquat compote with cointreau:
(adapted from Wendy of Table For Two and More with slight modification)

200gm kumquats, removed seeds

2 tbs cointreau (more or less to individual taste)

80gm Sugar

200gm Water

Method:

Half kumquats and remove seeds. Put cleaned kumquats, sugar and water into a saucepan and cook (on med heat)until the kumquat looks glossy and soft. Let cool and puree. Add cointreau and mix well.

Chocolate ganche:

100gm dark chocolate

200gm cream

Method:

Put cream in a microwave safe glass bowl and heat on high for 2-3 minutes, until just about to boil. Put chocolate in a medium sized glass bowl and pour hot cream over. Let sit for a minute or two then stir with a wooden spoon until completely smooth.

Kumquat dark chocolate cointreau fillings:

Add equal amount of  kumquat preserves and chocolate ganache and mix well. Put into a piping bag and pipe onto macaron shells. 


So what about the berries pie demo? I am sure you would like have the recipe from Chef Khang. I promise I will share with you in my next post. 

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers Challenge #17 - March Macaron Madness (March 2012 ) hosted by Alan from Travelling Foodies

My macs became a platter of "Dolly Partons"

I always hear this old saying; “ Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Look at these macarons of mine. Do you think they are pretty? When I brought them with me to a Hari Raya lunch which hosted by one of my girlfriends, I received a lot of oohs and aahs from her and the other guests. 

They did not know that my macarons had a flaw on the surface. Did you notice the little flower design on them? You likely did, as it is uncommon to see macarons decorated like that. So I won't keep you guessing. The decorations are to hide a small flaw in the confection's shape. Somehow, my baked little gems had developed "nipples", meaning a raised feature in the middle on top of all of them. I believe they turned out this way because I underfolded the batter. When I tasted them, the texture was perfect, a little crispy on the skin and soft and chewy on the inside, exactly the way I like it. I showed the macarons to my Quay lo. His first response was that I should use some red food colouring and "rouge" in the unwanted feature. After regaining my composure, I explained that might be ok for him but hardly suitable for a luncheon with my lady friends in celebration of a religious holiday. A platter of "Dolly Partons" just would not do.

Since they were delicious, at least by my own estimation, I thought it was worth hiding the flaw. I piped the little flower on to each of them. Bless my lady friends, they were all duly impressed, and I was duly relieved, while my husband was still at home laughing his head off.

This experience made me think of how outside flaws can sometimes be covered up easily and sometimes not. Have you come across someone who looks attractive and beautiful but as you get to know the person better, you find out that the true character is so ugly that it goes to the bone? Or the reverse, that there are also people who may appear unattractive outwardly, but inwardly they are a gem?

When we look for a soul mate, don’t we all wish we could get someone who is beautiful inside and outside? However, if we are given a choice, which would we prefer? Remember, our ideas of outward beauty seem to change with the times, and the latest fashions, or the latest "look", as popular culture tends to tell us what to think. Too many of us fall prey to those ideas. Quay lo always rants about high heels. He thinks the women of the world have been sold a form of self-torture. I think he may have something there.

In the case of my food and bakes, I would prefer the taste to be right and if they don’t look good, I will find ways to cover up the flaws where I can, and serve anyway if I cannot. But if the taste is not right, there is no way to salvage and one must simply start over.

Oh, and in one respect the same is true of me. I cover up my outside flaws with "war paint", but as for my inside flaws, I must work very hard to get rid of and I hope I will always know them and work on them. Thank goodness I am not a tray of cookies. And thank goodness that my Quay Lo loves me for who I am, flaws and all. And I love him, even though he keeps asking me to recreate those "Dolly Partons".

Okay, I said I will share with you what I learned from the demo of “How to make macarons” by Chef Frederic Oger from Academy of Pastry Arts. He pointed out few important points:

When to stop whipping the egg white. Notice the peak with a hook? That's when you stop.

When to stop folding the batter. Stop folding when the batter slowly flatten

Get to know the behavior of your oven to determine the temperature and the time required.

Lastly, don't forget to tap the base of the baking sheet to flatten the batter before letting it to dry out for at least 30 minutes or more. They should be ready to go into the oven as soon as  it does not stick to your finger when you gently touch it.

Macaron Chocolate
Recipe from Academy Art of Pastry, Malaysia

Chocolate Praline

Recipe from Academy Art of Pastry, Malaysia

The correct way of piping out the batter

How to make a piping bag from parchment paper

It was a great demo and we get to eat lots of wonderful pastry. Here are all the goodies displayed in the Academy which is truly a feast for the eyes.

All kinds of breads

 These are the cakes on display

 The Mac fever

Look at all these breath taking pastries!

Work of Art - Chocholate sculptures

I would like to thank Academy of Pastry Art Malaysia for inviting me to attend the demo. It was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot about making macarons. It was an eye opening to see so many breath taking and artful bakes! AWESOME!!

After attending the demo, I took heed of all the advice given by Chef Frederic and here is my 3rd batch of Macarons. I must say, I have them perfect, both look and texture! I just need to practise more on my piping and I would say I have conquered the intimidation of making macs! WOOHOO!! I got positive feedback from 5 of my friends whom I get them to taste my macarons and I can't tell you how thrill I am. LOL!

OUR 'MACA-RIGHTS" YAY!!!

We had a blogger friend, Pei Lin of Dodol Mochi come to spend the first day of Hari Raya with us this year.  If you have been my readers, you will know, I have tried to make French macarons some time ago but FAILED mercilessly!! Instead of getting macarons, I got a batch of ugly flat MACA-WRONGS! LOL!  I had to scrape them out from the parchment paper to eat them.  Oh yes, I ate them all by myself, over a few days because I find it very hard to throw away food. Honestly, the taste was good but no one would believe that looking at them.  So, to cut the long story short, I asked Pei Lin to teach me the right method. She came on Hari Raya eve and stayed the night at my house. Early next morning, after we both had our coffee, we started with our baking adventure. I am sure both Pei Lin and I will never forget how we, like little girls, squatting in front of the oven waiting anxiously for the macarons to grow legs, and then both screaming and laughing so hard when they did! LOL!  It was a fun and joyful ride for us. OMG!! I can't believe our macarons got their LEGS and tasted AWESOME!! YIPPEE!!

Pei Lin, being a perfectionist, was not extremely happy with the result because she thought they didn’t look as pretty as she would have wished. For me? Hahaha, I was estatic!! The fact that the macarons have legs and could be lifted off the parchment paper easily, had already sent me to the moon! Furthermore, they tasted perfect with the roasted chestnut filling. I truly cannot ask for more, can I? To tell you the truth, I am feeling VERY excited even now while writing this post. I can’t wait to do this on my own with a different flavor of fillings.

Just curious: Do you spend a lot of time “perfecting” your work, so everything comes out the way you want it to?  You know, in my opinion, being a perfectionist has its pros and cons . One of the pros is, we set high bars for ourselves and try our best to achieve it, which is good. On the flip side, one of the biggest negatives is that it can prevent us from having fun and being happy more easily. Let me hear your views. Do you kick yourself or are you quick to say "good enough":-)

A big THANK YOU to Pei Lin for all the goodies she brought us (German chocolate cake, American macarons and the moon cakes her aunt baked). Delicious!  MUAX!!!  Don't forget our next project is making pasta together. Does anyone want to join us?

This recipe was featured in Asian Food Channel Official Facebook Page

on 3rd November 2013

Vanilla Macarons shells
Make about 15 to 16, 1 1/2 inches diameter shells

Ingredients

83 grams icing sugar

64 grams ground almonds

53 grams egg whites (about 2 small eggs), aged for 48 hrs at room temperature

28 grams granulated sugar

coloring

½ tsp vanilla extract

Method to make the shells:

Sift almond flour and icing sugar into a mixing bowl and set aside. Please ensure the mixture is dry is entirely dry. After it is well mixed, add in coloring and blend in.

In a large clean, dry bowl whip egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Increase the speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar. Continue to whip to  ALMOST stiff peaks like in the photo.

With a flexible spatula, gently fold in almond and icing sugar mixture into egg whites until completely incorporated. The mixture should be shiny and 'flow like magma.' When small peaks dissolve to a flat surface, stop mixing.

Fit a piping bag with a 3/8-inch (1 cm) round tip. Pipe the batter onto the baking sheets and try to have equal size circles. If you want to have uniform size of shells, drawn circles before you pipe.  Tap the underside of the baking sheet to remove air bubbles. Let dry at room temperature for 1 or 2 hours to allow skins to form or when you gently touch the top of the batter, it does not stick to your finger.

Bake, in a 210°C oven for 2 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 150°C and baked another 10 to 13 minutes.

Remove macarons from oven and transfer parchment to a cooling rack. When cool, slide a metal offset spatula or pairing knife underneath the macaron to remove from parchment.

Ingredients for  Roasted Chestnut rum fillings:

50 grams roasted chestnut , puree

½ tsp milk

50 grams butter at room temperature

rum to taste

Method to make the filling:

Puree the roasted chestnut, butter and milk till smooth. Add in rum according to your taste.
(I added no sugar and the balance was perfect. Even my sweet toothed "lo kung" thought so. Nevertheless, some of you may want to add sugar to taste in the above.)

Assembling the macarons:

Pair macarons of similar size, and pipe about 1/2 tsp of the filling onto one of the macarons. Sandwich macarons, and refrigerate for one day to allow flavors to blend together. Bring back to room temperature before serving.


Advice from Pei Lin
1) It is important to let the egg white out in room temperature to age for 48 hours
2) Make sure when you beat the egg white it is NEAR stiff peak and not STIFF peak. This take practice to know what is near stiff peak. One way to know is that the peak form is like a small hook.
3) Remember not to over fold or under fold the batter.
4) Remember to let the batter dry for 1 to 2 hours before sending them for baking. This will prevent the shell from breaking and also to get a higher legs.
5) Don't forget to reduce the temperature to 150°C from 210°C after 2 mins.
6) When doing the piping, stop in the center so that the macaron shells will be balance in shape.
She said different people follow a different method and it is best to try a few and use the one that suits you best.