I had 6 egg whites left after the Daring Kitchen Maple Mousse cup challenge, 2 egg whites from the cannoli shells and 4 egg whites from the mousse.
And it has been aged for a week in the fridge, I have been doing the Challenge a bit later again, but still, I managed to squeeze in the challenge just a week before I decided to use the egg whites to make macarons, what else can be better? When I do a bit of "busy" cooking, I tend to do it during the weekends when I don't need to be rushed.
Coffee Macaron Shells:
180g Aged Egg Whites
1/4 teaspoon salt
145g almond meal
287.5g icing sugar
90g sugar
15g fine instant espresso
10g cocoa powder
Process the espresso, cocoa powder, icing sugar and almond meal in the food processor until well combined and sift.
Whisk meringue, add salt to the egg whites and start bench top mixer on medium high, and gradually increase to high, and at the meantime, slowly add in all the white sugar. Until meringue is hard peak.
Blend in the sifted dry ingredients into the egg whites, prepare the pipng bag.
I prefer to use my trust worthy silicon baking mats for macarons so piping is rather free-lance as I can't really draw circles on the silicon.
Leave piped shells to form crust for an hour, and tap the bottom of the trays to let air bubble out. Bake in pre-heated 150C oven for 12-15 minutes.
Stand till cool, and remove.
Nutella Buttercream
125g butter
1 egg
1 cup nutella
2 heap tablespoons icing sugar (add more if desired)
Whisk egg with icing sugar till pale, and meanwhile, warm the butter (I used the microwave) to just melt. Slowly drip the very warm butter into the egg mixture and whisk vigoriously - to make sure the egg won't scramble. Once it's mixed, fold in the nutella, mix till smooth and silky. Leave in fridge to cool to just below room temperature and start to fill the macarons.
I freezes the macarons if I can't use them up and they do freeze well. Great to bring some to work the next day as treats!
This is the cake with the lot, for the BBQ party last Saturday. And a lot of pain. Not from the Berry Macarons, not from the Joconde Imprime or the Milk Chocolate Bavarois, but the jelly, the easiest one to do!
Thanks to the Daring Baker's Challenge in January, my last cake of this type was a crowd pleaser in the last BBQ party. This time, we have a much bigger crowd so I'm thinking of a larger cake. I made the wrapping slightly taller and instead of the dark chocolate, I used milk chocolate this time, with a bit less sugar in the bavarois cream.
Another plan, well, initial plan was to make mixed berry mousse to set on top of the bavarois. I made enough berry coulis for the mousse and butter cream (of course the butter cream didn't work out). It was a last minute decision to make jelly instead of mousse.
For some reason, it went over the cake and spilled, leaked out of the cake... I'm not sure if it was because I forgot to line the baking paper inside the ring.... and I was sooo depressed at the time, the butter cream and the jelly, I almost threw the cake to the wall...
Hubby calmed me down. It might not be the prettiest cake because the joconde is soaked with jelly a bit, so part of the cake looked a bit more purple than the other, it was already late at night, I started the whole gig a bit too late in the afternoon, juggling between macarons, joconde, bavarois and dinner, the party is mid day the Sunday, there was probably not much time to make another one if I need to set the bavarois, jelly or mousse, or whatever.
And I needed some sleep, as hubby put it.
So, bright and not so early the Sunday morning, after a batch of pancakes for breakfast, I felt it's time, to get the cake up to something presentable.
I whipped some cream with a bit of cocoa powder and a bit of red and blue food colouring to cover the cracks and make some pattern, so the different colours of joconde wouldn't be so obvious, and there was some where to stand the macarons.
Temperred some chocolate (70% cocoa dark chocolate) with some of the berry butter cream melted together, and spread on silicon mat, made some patterns and got some chocolate bark...
It doesn't look so bad after all..
And no one at the cake suspected there was a major drama about the cake... They loved it, bavarois was light, macarons are nice, and not so heavy after so much meat from the Barbe... Have promised our friends will try harder next gathering...
Yes, I'm making macarons again.
As I have to age the eggs 4 days ahead, well, I usually do that for macarons, never take any chances with the egg whites, I have got my vision of berry flavoured macaron this time.
Not quite what I imagine to be.
This time, I adapted from Cecile Cannone's MACARONS. I love shopping from Amazon, not only I can get books so much cheaper and so many more varieties than the book shops in Melbourne, but also cooking tools like cannoli cones, jelly icing colours... so much fun.
I was trying to re-create a mixed berry colour.
Macaron Shells:
3 large egg whites, aged 3-4 days at least and bring to room temperature with lid open the night before baking.
150g icing sugar
60g castor sugar
108g almond meal
15g cocoa powder
some drop of Wilton Jelly Food Colouring - Burgundy.
Fillings:
I had all the intention to make berry butter cream fillings, but it didn't work out well.
I made the mixed berry coulis, whisked the eggs with sugar and slowly cooked it, as the book suggested, but for some reason, when I went to whisk the cold butter, and slowly added the berry mixture, it never mixed together.
This is what I did for the fillings:
2 heap tbsp of berry butter cream
80g dark chocolate
70ml thickened cream.
Heat up the berry butter cream together with the fresh cream, melt the chocolate and here is the berry chocolate ganache.
Looks like my chocolate saved the day again.
I made macarons last Saturday afternoon for a party on Sunday, our family's job was to provide dessert, and of course I couldn't just bring the macarons, even though I knew, the host family, our dear friends absolutely love macarons and they loved Cecile's book last time they visited us!
It was Bianca's birthday a week before, but we didn't have her over until last weekend. She told me after Monique's birthday cake, that she'd like to have a love heart cake, that kid, since she was little, she's always full of love, and loves to feel love.
My initial plan was a white chocolate mousse cake with strawberry jelly, use the strawberries to form a love heart. But the cake wouldn't survive a trip down to Mornington in 30C heat as we decided to bring the cake down to Mother in Law's, and share the birthday cake with her.
So I made a cake that family love, and would survive a car trip of over an hour in a hot day.
I used a 20cm round spring form and a heart shaped mini tin.
Spiced Triple Chocolate Love Heart Cake with Macarons
100g milk chocolate
100g dark chocolate (70% cocoa - I used Lindt's)
5 egg yolks
1 large egg
50g dark chocolate chips
1 tbsp golden syrup
1/2 tsp all spice powder
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder
200 g Self Raising flour
100ml whole milk
2/3 cup brown sugar (firm packed)
Preheat oven to 160C, line and grease the spring form, grease the heart tin.
Melt the chocolate.
Cream butter with sugar, beat in egg yolks and egg till smooth.
Add chocolate and syrup to the mix, keep beating.
Sift together spices and flour into the mix, add milk and mix till smooth.
Fold in the chocolate chips.
Scoop batter into the pans and bake cakes, 20 minutes for the small one in heart shape tin and 40 minutes for the big one, cool on rack.
Put the cakes into the freezer.
And.... make the macarons...
Go out for dinner. The cake need to be chilled before it can be shaped.
Make the chocolate butter cream - the same batch used in the macarons.
Shape the round cake using the shape of the small one, slice the top of the cake to be level.
Apply the chocolate butter cream.
Add the macarons on top, sides and the writing...
I haven't made macarons for a while.
Probably I have been used to "no need to be precise" attitude of baking, and my 40 year old oven - ah, it's as old as me if not older, I can't wait for my kitchen renovation to happen and my new ILVE oven to be up and running...
But at the meantime, I have to work with what I've got.
I have been collecting macaron recipes, and have been keen to try out some. One of the books that I like is I love macarons by Japanese Pastry Chef Hisako Ogita. I normally use the French Meringue method, I've got all the time on earth to age the egg whites anyway.
I don't think I've done a good job this time, considering I'm trying to do a red velvet macaron. This is what I did on Saturday.
Anyway, this is how it goes:
3 egg whites
150g pure icing sugar
18g cocoa powder
several drops of red food colouring
65g fine white sugar
90g almond meal (the original recipe specified almond flour, maybe there's the slight difference)
The oven is definitely not correct as it's not cooking the cookies properly as according to the time specified, so I had to bake them for a bit longer, and some of them cracked a bit because the oven heat is not even.
Chocolate Butter Cream Filling:
100g 72% cocoa dark chocolate
4 tbsp icing sugar
175b butter - softened to room temperature
1 tbsp milk - plus extra if needed
It's a simple filling, bit more moist than butter cream using cocoa powder.
Melt chocolate (microwave, bain marie, whatever is handy), cool a little, but not to let set again.
Whisk butter with icing sugar till soft and well mixed.
Add a little cooled chocolate and mix well. Add milk as needed.
I must admit using bench top mixer is a lot quicker, however I was watching tele on Saturday night after the cookies were baked, and I decided to mix it with hand whisk whilst watching .... Iron Chef.
It worked anyway, and helped to burn a few calories.
It's easy to store the macarons, in air tight containers in freezer, but I have other uses for those cookies....
To be continued....
I got my new book - I love Macarons and I decided to have another go at the family's new found fav...
This time, orange coloured macaron shells with dark chocolate and orange flavour...
Macarons:
300g Icing Sugar
200g Almond meal
150g Egg Whites
80g White Sugar
1 drop of red food colouring
1 drop of yellow food colouring
Ganache:
150g Lindt’s Orange 70% Dark Chocolate
100g Cream
2 tbsp Marmalade
Method:
Sift icing sugar and almond meal.
Whisk egg whites (separated 3 days ago) to firm peak, slowly add in white sugar till glossy.
Add in food colouring and keep whisking.
Blend in sifted almond meal and icing sugar, put in piping bag and pipe onto baking trays lined with silicon baking matts.
Wait for 1 hour for crust to form.
Heat oven to 200C and then reduce to 140C
Bake for 23 minutes.
Make ganache:
Boil cream, pour over chopped chocolate and mix well.
Wait until room temperature and add in marmalade.
da da.....
Really glad that the liquid food colouring worked well this time, I do have the powdered colourings, and next batch, I'm thinking, maybe the green tea powder... something oriental?
Anyway, these ones do disappear very quickly...
I did start the duck process the night before.
Even though I know I won't be able to replicate a proper roast duck due to the oven limitations, it's still nice to know if I can do a nice duck at home...
We only bought a small duck, small family, that's enough for us.
The night before, I rubbed the inner side of the duck with Hoisum sauce, placed inside some spring onion and sliced ginger and sealed it with a skewer.
Boiled in my wok, a mixture made up of white vinegar, 5 spice, bit of shaoxin, light soy and 2 tbsp of Maltose (well, could be more, it's really sticky and hard to count!)
And then I hold the duck over the wok with simmering sauce and bathed it with the sauce with a spoon, coat it again and again, for about 10 minutes (I did get sore arms doing that)
And then, I left it on the rack to dry, before I can hang it up on a hook in the kitchen - well the commerical kitchens will have more airy spots and won't take that long to dry out!
High heat before dinner, and this is what the bird looks like, roasted on rack though... so it has got the rack marks, even I did turn the bird...
Anyway, we had happy campers for dinner... and I had enough time to do the macarons...
This time, plain macarons....
With white chocolate & coconut ganache:
250g white chocolate
100ml thickened cream
25g butter
1/2 cup desiccated coconut...
And they look delicious.... and I guess, more macarons to come in the coming weeks?
Saturday night I made my first creme brulee tarte, because I finally bought a blow torch... Well, it's not really that hard as I have made a lot of custard tartes before, the only thing left to be done is the caramelising of the sugar on top...
I followed Michael McCarty's recipe and this tarte is just beautiful.... Must say it is a big tarte, so we had half for dessert after Saturday dinner and the other half, for dessert after Sunday lunch... even the children loved it... This is the link to the recipe http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Creme-Brulee-Tart-350238
I made the creme brulee tarte because I wanted to make Macarons.... so I did it today. Egg whites were seperated 3 days ago, as instructed by Emmanuel Mollois...
Quantity wise, I actually used another recipe, because Emmanuel's recipe contains a lot of eggs, sugar, and I thought, there's no way, I can use up all that biscuits, where can I find an oven big enough to bake all these and I wasn't wrong... Even with that recipe, I think it's better for me to half it, because I found out quick enough, I don't have enough cookie sheets and silicon matts to bake all the biscuits, and if they are not on the right surface, they become sticky and I lost some of the biscuits because of that!
275 grams pure icing sugar
140 grams fine almond meals
4 egg whites
25 grams dutched cocoa powder
and everything is sifted and sifted.... I whisked the egg whites to hard peak, fold in half of the icing sugar and whisk as I would do a French Menringue (of course I did use an electrical mixer, I can whisk by hand, but I think the machine can whisk it a bit firmer...) and then fold in the rest of sugar and cocoa powder and the almond meals.
and Then, I had trouble, we bought that big cupboard thingy for the kitchen and hubby was busy moving things in the kitchen whilst I was stressing out with the macarons... and I was never good with piping... The first bag busted, and then the second... finally got it lucky but after scrapping the batter from one bag to another, I did lose some air bubbles and the biscuits were a bit flatter than I thought it should be....
This is what they look like after 23 minutes in the 140C oven, I do think they could go for 2 or three more minutes, I used Emmanuel's instruction, but he must have got a much better oven than my old 70's very tired oven.
But, it's already exciting enough, after all that, I managed to get 10 reasonable looking macarons, which I only just made a simple ganache for the filling....
100g lindt's 70's cocoa chocolate
100g thickened cream
2 tbsp icing sugar
25g butter
Heat up cream and pour over chocolate (broken down to pieces) and stir to melt the chocolate. add in butter and make sure everything is smooth... add icing sugar, and mix well.
Make sure ganache is cooled down and not runny before you assemble....
I've heard that Macarons are best after chilled in freezer...
Surely they don't look too bad for a first timer? The family did ate the ones that didn't look too good, half stuck ones or the ones piped too close and stuck together, those factory seconds, and they thought the biscuits by itself were yummy enough...
