Bear Pasta

It's going to be a busy school term for us. IT just came back from school with a notification that he is selected for a basketball competition, so there will be extra trainings for him this term. That translate to another day of lunch delivery for me. Not sure whether IT can cope with all the extra trainings, since his school work this year is quite heavy, guess we'll just have to take one step at a time and see how things go.


I made this bear pasta before the school holidays. It's really fast and easy to make, I'm sharing the steps in this post to show you how simple it is to recreate this. :)


This was bolognese pasta, if you need a recipe for the bolognese sauce, you can click HERE to check out a recipe I shared before.


I chose bow pasta, but you can replace with other pasta if you prefer.


Roughly arrange bolongese sauce in the shape of a bear, fill up the spaces with pasta. You can add on additional sauce to make the bear shape more defined after filling up the spaces with pasta.


Slice cucumber and place on sauce.


Using round cutters, cut out the bear's eyes and blush from cheese and ham respectively. Use a bigger cutter for the eyes and a smaller one for the blush.


Cut out eyes and nose from nori using a pair of scissors. You can use some mayo to "stick" on the nori if needed. There, just a few steps, and your bear pasta is ready. :)

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Kiiroitori Chick Macaron

It's almost the end of our school holidays, school is reopening again next week. The four weeks flew past so fast, I've to get used to waking up early again, we've been sleeping and waking up late the past month.


Sharing another macaron creation I came up with, decorated them as Kiiroitori, Rilakkuma's chick friend.


This time, instead of using icing to pipe on the details, I experimented with using macaron batter. I prefer this method much better, and have subsequently made a few more character macarons using this method, will update them on the blog next time.


I filled the macarons with lemon buttercream, love the tangy lemon buttercream, helps to balance out the sweetness of the macarons.

KIIROITORI CHICK MACARON RECIPE
Ingredients:
80g ground almond
160g icing sugar
60g egg white, separated for 24 hours in advance
a little Wilton yellow gel colouring
a little Wilton orange gel colouring

Buttercream:
60g egg white
110g butter, room temperature
110g fine castor sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp lemon zest

Method:

1. Sieve 80g icing sugar together with ground almond twice. Alternatively, you can also use a food processor to pulse them till fine before sieving them once. Set aside.


2. Beat egg white on low/medium speed until foamy, sieve 80g icing sugar in 3 batches, change to high speed and beat till soft peak form. You can turn up the speed and continue to beat till stiff peak, if you prefer a thicker macaron. Add in a little yellow gel colouring using a toothpick, mix to combine.

3. Add step 2 icing sugar/almond mixture into egg white in 2 batches, folding well to combine.

4. Scoop out 3 tbsp of batter and colour them with a little orange colouring using a toothpick. Fill batter in a piping bag.

5. Scoop yellow batter into pipping bag with nozzle tip #1A attached. Pipe small circles on a non-stick baking sheet. Use a toothpick to prick the air bubbles. 

6. Pipe out mouth using orange batter. Dry the macarons shells for 30 minutes under room temperature.

7. Preheat oven to 150 degrees celcius. Bake macarons at middle rack for around 12-15 minutes. Once the feet appears (they should do so before 5 minutes) , place an oven rack above the tray of macarons and continue baking till 12-15 minutes is up. (this is to prevent the top of the macarons from browning) When baking is complete, do not remove the macarons from the tray, allow them to cool for a while before removing. 
8. To make the buttercream filling, first, grate yellow part of lemon to get lemon zest. Set aside.

9. Combine egg whites and sugar in a mixing bowl. Whisk over a gentle simmering hot water bath, till all the sugar have melted. Remove from heat.

10. Place on mixer and whisk on high till stiff peaks are formed.

11. Turn down the speed and add in the butter gradually, mix well.

12. Mix in lemon zest and lemon juice. Fill in pipping bag, refrigerate around 15 minutes before pipping onto your macarons. 
13. Draw Kiiroitori's details using black food markers. 
 

 Note:

• The measurements for the ingredients is crucial. It is also important to whisk the egg whites and fold in the sugar/almond mixture correctly.
• The need to use aged egg whites is debatable, but you should at least use egg whites at room temperature. I usually separate them the night before, leave in a bowl covered with cling wrap at room temperature.
• Please ensure equipments are dry when beating egg whites, else you will have problem beating them till stiff peak.
• It is necessary to leave the batter to rest for at least half an hour before baking, this is for the macarons to form a shell on top.
• It's important to use a non-stick baking sheet, I usually bake mine on silpat mats.
• Macarons taste better the following day, so if you can wait, keep in fridge and eat them the next day.

Where to get same item used in today's post:

Bubbly World Hello Kitty Bento

Macdonalds launched the Bubbly World Hello Kitty collection at the end of April. There was no mayhem mad rush this round as compared to the previous Fairy Tale Hello Kitty collection. This time the entire set could be ordered online,  a great option for those who do not want to join the queue at the restaurant or eat their food. I did not get any though as my Fairy Tale plushies are still collecting dust at home. -_-


The Bubbly World series features Hello Kitty dressed up as her friends, I chose to recreate two of my favourite design. The first one is Hello Kitty dressed up as Keroppi.


There was basil chicken, stir-fried peasprouts with mushrooms and strawberries in the other bento box on the left.


Ingredients used to make Keroppi Hello Kitty were rice ( coloured green using deco furi), egg, nori, crabstick, and ham.


The other character I made was Hello Kitty dressed up as Badtz-Maru, on a slice of grilled cheese toast.


Ingredients used for this were egg, nori, cheese and strawberries.

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post:

Spiderman Bento

Apologies for the lack of posts, I've noticed not much drop in my blog traffic so thank you very much for still dropping by to check out. I've been lazy to get the blog updated after returning from my trip. In fact, this post have been in my draft folder for a week, with the pictures but no text. -_-


I made this spiderman bento after the movie, The Amazing Spiderman 2, started showing in cinemas here. It's been a long time since my last spiderman bento, you can check out the previous one HERE.


The bento was packed with tonkatsu, garlic prawns, broccoli and fruits.


Spiderman was made using rice (coloured red and blue using deco furi), nori and cheese.


After I made the spiderman bento, my boys requested for a black spiderman bento. I ended up making a spiderman food art for them instead.


Side dish for that day was a one pot spicy Korean stew which contains chicken, potatoes, carrots and radish. I also steamed a fish that day but it's not in the picture. I've been getting a good supply of fish from my hubby's monthly fishing trips, I don't have to buy fish these days other than salmon and cod, which he can't catch in this region.


Spiderman was made from rice, nori, Kamaboko and somen. Web was made using black pasta and the houses were made using nori and cheese.

Where to get same or similar items used in today's post: