Kaya Toast Macarons

Adapted from Octaphilosophy by André Chiang.

Ingredients

Toast Macarons

1. Ground almonds, 250g
2. Icing sugar, 250g
3. Caster sugar, 250g
4. Water, 100ml
5. Egg whites, 200g
6. Toasted breadcrumbs, 50g + extra

Kaya Filling

1. Eggs, 250g
2. Coconut milk, 250ml
3. Caster sugar, 220g
4. Pandan essence/pandan leaf juice, 2 tsp

Assembly

1. Unsalted butter, softened
2. Salt
3. Espresso

Instructions

Toast Macarons

1. In a food processor, combine ground almonds and icing sugar and pulse.
2. In a pan, combine caster sugar and water and cook to 120C.
3. In a stand mixer, whip 95g of egg whites on medium speed.
4. Once the syrup in the pan reaches 120C, increase mixer speed to high and drizzle in syrup.
5. Keep whipping until stiff and cool.
6. Fold in the almond mixture and remaining egg whites. 
7. Fold in the breadcrumbs.
8. Transfer mixture to a piping bag. 
9. Pipe mixture into a bread-shaped stencil on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. 
10. Smooth with a palette knife and remove the stencil.
11. Dust with extra toasted breadcrumbs and let dry.
12. Bake at 140C for 13-15 min.

Kaya Filling

1. Blend all ingredients.
2. Transfer to a bain marie on medium heat and cook, stirring for 10 min until mixture thickens to a paste consistency.
3. Store refrigerated for up to 3 days.

Assembly

1. Fill a piping bag with kaya filling and pipe kaya filling onto one side of a macaron. 
2. Add 1/2 tsp of softened unsalted butter and sprinkle with salt.
3. Sandwich with another macaron.
4. Freeze for 48h.
5. Defrost at room temp for 3h.
6. Toast both sides of the macaron until crisp and light brown.
7. Serve immediately, with an extra dollop of kaya and espresso.

Crabmeat Pie

Adapted from Sensations by Sam Leong (Crispy Crabmeat Pastry with Foie Gras Braised in Soy Sauce).

Ingredients

1. Plain/all-purpose flour, 125g
2. 1 egg yolk
3. 1 tsp vegetable shortening
4. Cooking oil, for deep-frying
5. Shallots, chopped, 1 tsp
6. Scallions, chopped, 1 tsp
7. Crabmeat, 85g
8. Leek, chopped, 45g
9. Hard-boiled egg, chopped, 1
10. Salt, 1/4 tsp
11. Sugar, 1/4 tsp 
12. White pepper, 1/4 tsp

Instructions

1. Combine flour, egg yolk and shortening into a dough. 
2. Roll out into a thin sheet, and cut out rounds.
3. Heat 1 tbsp of oil and fry the shallots until light golden.
4. Drain and combine with remaining ingredients for the filling. 
5. Divide filling into 4 portions.
6. Spoon 1 portion of filling onto the centre of a dough round and cover with another dough round. 
7. Press edges tgt to seal pastry. Repeat to make 4 pastries.
8. Heat the oil for deep-frying and deep-fry the pastries for 2 min, until crisp and golden brown. 
9. Drain pastries well and serve.

Sugar Cookies 1

Makes about 45 cookies.

Ingredients

1. 300g self-raising flour
2. 113g (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3. 75g caster sugar
4. 1 egg
5. 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

1. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until pale and fluffy. With mixer running, add egg and vanilla. Sift the flour and add to mixture gradually, beating until just incorporated. 
2. Divide dough in half, flatten each half into a disc and wrap each in plastic cling film. Refrigerate for at least an hour/freeze for 15 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 163°C. 
4. Remove 1 disc of chilled dough and let stand at room temperature just until soft enough to roll. 
5. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to preferred thickness. Add more flour if needed to keep dough from sticking.
6. Cut out cookies with a cutter, and place them about 3cm apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
7. Re-roll the scraps into a disc, wrap with cling film and refrigerate/freeze again, while you repeat steps 4-6 with the other disc of dough.
8. Freeze cut-out cookies for about 15 minutes.
9. Bake cookies for about 16 minutes. Rotate sheets halfway through.
10. When the cookies turn slightly golden, remove from oven and cool the sheets on wire racks. 

Sugar Cookies 2

Makes about 50 cookies.

Ingredients

1. 225g butter
2. 480g plain flour
3. 100g caster sugar
4. 14 tbsp milk
5. 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Mix butter and sugar.
3. Add in flour a little at a time and mix till combined, adding milk if the mixture is too dry.
4. Roll out the dough into balls and flatten on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
5. Bake for 15min. 

The GAP's Fried Apple Pie

Adapted from here. An alternative recipe for fried apple pie (there's another here by Momofuku)! Makes 9 servings.

Ingredients

Pie Dough

1. 4 cups all-purpose flour
2. 1.5 tsp baking powder
3. 3/4 tsp salt
4. 3/4 cup whole milk
5. 1/2 cup vegetable shortening, melted and cooled
6. 2 eggs

Apple Pie Filling

1. 1/2 cup apple cider/juice
2. 1 tbsp cornstarch
3. 5 apples, peeled, cored and diced
4. 1/2 cup granulated sugar
5. 1/2 tsp nutmeg
6. 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
7. 1 tsp vanilla extract
8. 1 tbsp unsalted butter

Instructions

Pie Dough

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, sift flour, baking powder salt. 
2. Add milk, shortening and eggs.
3. Mix on low speed until dry ingredients are moistened.
4. Continue mixing on medium speed for abt 3 min, until dough is no longer sticky, adding more flour 1 tbsp at a time as needed.
5. Halve dough, envelop each half in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1h.

Apple Pie Filling

1. In a small bowl, whisk 1/4 cup apple cider/juice with cornstarch.
2. In a large bowl, toss together apples, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla extract.
3. In a large pot, heat butter over medium-high heat and let bubble for 20s.
4. Add apple mixture, cover with the lid askew, and cook for about 6 min, stirring occasionally, until apples start to soften.
5. Add remaining 1/4 cup apple cider/juice to the pot. 
6. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-high.
7. Simmer for 2-3 min, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced by half.
8. Stir in cornstarch mixture.
9. Cook for abt 4 min until thickened.
10. Remove from heat.
11. Place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper and cool completely.
12. Cover baking sheets with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold.

Assembly

1. On a floured surface, roll out the dough into rounds abt 10cm in diameter.
2. Place the rounds on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, and cover with another sheet of parchment paper. Reserve in refrigerator.
3. When all the dough have been rolled out, remove apple pie filling and dough from refrigerator.
4. Place 2 tbsp of filling in the center of each round, moisten the edge of the bottom half of each round with water, and fold the top half of the dough over the filling to bring the edges together. Press tightly to seal. Reserve in refrigerator.
5. In a large pot, heat oil to 191C.
6. Fry the pies in batches, for abt 3-5 min, turning them often until brown on all sides.
7. Remove from oil and place on paper towels to drain. Serve warm.

Fried Apple Pie

From Momofuku Cookbook.

Ingredients

1. 250g all-purpose flour
2. 3 tbsp cornstarch
3. 3 tbsp sugar
4. 1 tsp salt
5. 2.5 tbsp cold unsalted butter
6. 1 tbsp + 2 tsp pork fat/vegetable shortening
7. 1/2 tsp white/apple/rice wine vinegar
8. 125g water
9. Apple pie filling
10. Oil
11. Cinnamon dust
12. Miso butterscotch
13. Sour cream ice cream

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, combine flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt. Beat on low speed for 10-15s.
2. Add butter and shortening and beat on medium-low for abt 3 min, until the dough resembles clumpy sand.
3. Add vinegar to the water, and with the mixer running on medium-low, add the liquid to the dough a few tbsp at a time.
4. Mix for 3-5 min until the dough comes together.
5. Remove from the bowl and shape into a flat, thick rectangle and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 1h.
6. Bring the dough back up to almost room temp.
7. Using a scale, measure out 6 50g pieces of dough (for the bottoms) and 6 30g pieces of dough (for the tops). 
8. Roll the pieces of dough into the shape of the mold you are using, with the bottoms being larger than the tops.
9. Generously flour the molds.
10. Press the bottom piece of dough into the mold, then fill with 75g of apple pie filling. Repeat for all the pieces of dough.
11. Dip a pastry brush into cold water and brush the edges of the dough in the molds, then gently lay the top pieces of dough over the moulds and crimp the top and bottom pieces of dough together.
12. Freeze the pies in the molds for 30 min
13. Remove the pies from the molds, transfer to a baking sheet, wrap in plastic and freeze the pies until solid, for at least a few hours.
14. In a large pot, heat a quart or two of oil to about 182C.
15. Fry the pies one at a time. After about 5 min, the pie should float up to the surface of the oil and appear golden brown. Remove from the oil, and cool on a wire rack. 
16. After 1 min, dust the top of the pies with cinnamon dust.
17. Serve each pie with a tbsp of miso butterscotch and sour cream ice cream. 
18. Serve immediately.

Lemon Meringue Tart

Ingredients

1. Baked tart shell (see pâte sucrée recipe)

Lemon curd

1.  240g caster sugar
2. Zest and lemon juice from 3 lemons
3. 200g eggs
4. 300g butter, cubed, room temp

Italian Meringue

1. 100g egg whites
2. 1/2 tsp salt
3. 200g caster sugar
4. 60g water

Instructions

1. (Optional) In a large bowl, rub the lemon zest in the sugar for 1-2 min, to diffuse the lemon flavour into the sugar.
2. In a separate bowl, hand whisk the eggs. Add the eggs into the lemon sugar mixture, and whisk in with lemon juice.
3. Heat the lemon curd on a bain-marie, stirring every min, until it reaches 81C.
4. Remove from bain-marie and allow to cool down to 55-60C.
5. Whisk in butter, one cube at a time. 
6. Handblend the curd for 6 min, then pass through a fine-mesh sieve into a plastic container.
7. Cover the surface of the lemon curd with cling film and chill in fridge for at least 4h or overnight.
8. When ready to assemble the tart, make the Italian meringue.
9. Place egg whites and salt in the bowl of a stand-mixer with the whisk attachment.
10. Place sugar and water in a small pan and boil over medium heat. When the syrup reaches the boil, start whisking the egg whites on medium speed, until soft peaks.
11. Cook the syrup to 118C and pour over the egg whites.
12. Increase the speed and keep whisking until the meringue feels barely warm.
13. Fill a piping bag with the chilled lemon curd and pipe a generous layer of lemon curd into the baked tart shell.
14. Fill a piping bag with the meringue, and pipe on top of the lemon curd. Burn using a blowtorch.

Pâte Sucrée (Sweet French Pastry Crust)

Pâte sucrée is a sweet French pastry crust. There are three common types of French pastry crusts - pâte sucrée (sweet), pâte brisée (broken) and pâte sablée (sand). Pâte sucrée is commonly used for sweet tarts with cream fillings, pâte brisée for more savoury tarts (like apple pie, or even meat/vegetable pies, if the sugar is omitted), and pâte sablée is more crumbly, although it is often used interchangeably with pâte sucrée.

Adapted from Like a Strawberry Milk, Serious Eats and Bon Appétit. Three different versions are included here.

Ingredients

Pierre Hermé's Pâte Sucrée

1. 300 g unsalted butter, cold
2. 190g icing sugar
3. 60g ground almonds
4. 1 tsp sea salt
5. Seeds from 1 vanilla bean
6. 100g eggs
7. 500g plain flour

Nut-Free Pâte Sucrée

1. 280g unsalted butter, cold
2. 180g icing sugar
3. 1 tsp salt
4. Seeds from 1 vanilla bean
5. 100g eggs
6. 40g egg yolks
7. 545g plain flour

My Version of Pâte Sucrée

1. 250g unsalted butter, cold 
2. 150g icing sugar
3. 70g ground almond
4. 1 tsp salt
5. 2 tsp vanilla extract
6. 100g eggs
7. 500g plain flour

Instructions

1. In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, icing sugar, ground almonds (if using), salt and vanilla until smooth,
2. Add in eggs (and egg yolks, for the nut-free recipe) one at a time, mixing well after each addition for about 1 min. 
3. Mix in flour on low-speed until just combined.
4. Divide dough into three lumps, roughly 350g each. Flatten each between two sheets of baking paper. Roll (always from centre-up), giving the dough a quarter turn every time, into a large disk, around 3-4mm thick. Place dough onto a baking tray and set aside. Chill in the fridge for at least 2h, or keep in fridge for up to a week/in freezer for up to 2 months.
5. Cut out strips to the size of the sides of your tart ring and a round base to the size of the base of the tart ring, and line the tart ring, by lining the sides, then pushing in the base and using fingers to smooth out. Chill/freeze for 1-2h. 
6. Blind-bake your tart case by layering two pieces of clingfilm on top of one another/opening up a cupcake case to the size your tart ring, and placing over the tart case. Fill up the tart case with weights (eg rice).
7. Bake at 150-160C for about 35 min. Cool completely in tart ring before removing.
8. Trim any bits of uneven dough at the top gently with a peeler. 
9. Use tart pastry as needed.