#52: Durian Small Cakes

Durian is now in season and I knew I had to make something out of it.  I was thinking about making durian muffin but then I came across the recipe and decided to try it. Bought some durian from Hypermart, the durian wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Wasn't that sweet and the aroma wasn't strong enough. The recipe calls for 300g of durian flesh, I put almost 500g of it. I accidentally overwhipped the cream while I was checking out my blackberry. I should refrain from doing it the next time I bake. But it didn't really matter I guessed, so I kept going and fold it to the mixture. The custard was too runny so it was a bit hard to assemble the cakes - but it will set after keeping them in the fridge for hours. I was happy with the result but friends told me that it's lacking the durian taste and a bit too creamy (I guess it  was because I overwhipped the cream). Well to me it was good but not great - but it's worth another try I guess. I'm going to look for a great real durian - I'm a noob in choosing great durian.

#51: Strawberry French Macarons

I am not a fan of macarons but I was obsessed with making them. First time I and Shirlyn baked them, they tasted good but had the wrong texture - they weren't smooth and pretty. So I decided to give it another try but with different recipe. I was careless in the first try. The recipe calls for 3 egg whites and I had 4 egg whites stored in the fridge. I guess another extra of egg white would be just okay. Turned out how wrong I was. The batter was so runny and would not set after 30 minutes standing. It was a disaster I threw them all in the bin.
Then I tried once again, this time I was really careful. I had a hard time trying to sieve the almond meal so I would have perfect smooth macaron skins. The batter looked great, the macarons got their "feet" when they started to rise in the oven. I was happy but when I took them out from the oven, their color was too pale and burnt a bit. I also noticed the "feet" were too big and messy they didn't look good but I kept going anyway. I sandwiched them with strawberry jam, gave it a try and they didn't taste good. They were eatable though. Next time I'm gonna try making macarons the Italian way - which is to boil the batter in a pot with the right temperature. I heard that the method was fail-proof. But not anytime soon since these macarons brought me down :(

#50: Custard Fruit Flan

Had problems with the pastry. It was too thick. Everything else is good. :)

#49: Chocolate French Macaroons

I'm not actually a fan of macaroons but had been wanting to bake some after I saw the cover of Australian Masterchef magazine. That was a long time ago.

the cover of Australian Masterchef magazine

the first batch - failed

Anyway I baked some chocolate macaroons with Shirlyn this morning. It was our first time making macaroons. The first batch we baked was a failure. The macs got some ugly holes in them :( then we checked with Google, it turns out that we have to let them dry for about 20-30 minutes after piping them (it was actually on the recipe but we didn't read it well :P). And we have to tap the air out from the batter by tapping the trays on bench. We were so happy watching them rise a bit in the oven. It was almost perfect except the surface isn't smooth. I guess it was the almond powder. We tried to sift the almond powder though but it took so long so we just used them as they were. It is recommended that we use ultra fine almond powder. It is a bit hard to find the ingredients here, I guess next time we're making macaroons we're gonna put them on the food processor first to make it ultra fine and then sift them first before folding them into the egg whites batter. Anyway the macaroons taste quite good. Very chocolatey! You can find some tips on making the perfect macaroons here on Pink Whisk

#48: Light New York Cheesecake

Finally I got the chance to bake again. Well there were lots of things preventing me from baking. One major reason was the electricity. I was paying the wrong huge electricity bills for the last three or four months. The bills were mixed up with another tenant. Blah blah blah and to cut it short : I thought it was so expensive I refrained from using the brand new oven.

Well last night I was making New York Cheesecake. Okay I wasn't actually planning to bake. I just could not sleep. I was planning to do it on a daylight - asked a friend to come around on next week but it had been half an hour and I was just lying on my bed, my eyes were wide opened, my mind was wandering - oh it's so silly. Half an hour later I found myself in the kitchen weighing ingredients.

I am not a good planner to start with. I didn't realize I didn't have any oven mitts or chopping board. This recipe requires me to do the "warm bath" baking. That is to place the cheesecake pan in a large roasting pan and pour boiling water into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan. I thought I didn't have the roasting pan, but I actually do! It came with the oven when I bought it.

It's hard to find regular sour cream in Surabaya. I found the light sour cream so I took two tubs of them. The cream cheese was also light as well and it wasn't cheap. The cost of the ingredients was almost 400k, with that I could get two cheesecakes from Harvest. But I was determined to bake the NY cheesecake so here I am. One thing that got me worried was the warm bath technique. It was my first time and I was concerned about taking the pan out of the oven (I had no oven mitts and I knew it was gonna be humid and superhot). I had no food processor so I had to crush the biscuits by myself. It was a tiring job my thumb is now red and I could see an air bubble on my thumb.

While I was baking the cake, there was this lunar eclipse happening. I went to the balcony but couldn't see the moon so I watched it live via Techland.

Well the cheesecake that I've baked looks exactly like what's in the book. It looks yummy but it is actually just okay. It is eatable but it's not that good or anything. I've been trying to figure out what went wrong. First of all I had problems with the ingredients. The recipe calls for regular cream cheese and regular sour cream. I found the light ones. I also couldn't find digestive biscuits (the recipe calls for Nice biscuits) so I was using Regal Marie instead - which turned out to taste not as good as what I had expected. Another thing: vanilla extract. Back in Melbourne I had no problems in finding it. It is labeled exactly word by word "vanilla extract" and I don't really know what it is in Indonesian. I used Koepoe - venili aroma. I opened it and it smelled different. Anyway that was the only thing I had in hand.

So the next time I bake another cheesecake, I'll try to use Biskuat instead. I'll look for good vanilla extract or essence (they are two different things - essence is the imitation of the extract but you can't really tell the difference in the cake). Lastly, I'm gonna look for the real cream cheese. Oh well but I think I'm not gonna bake any cheesecake anytime soon.