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!
I love Nutella. When you are in a rush, it's tasty, it's easy and it's chocolate, with nuts.
When we had the visitors last weekend, I decided to make some cheese cakes. I like baked cheese cakes better, so it's an easy choice.
Nutella Swirl Baked Cheese Cake Slices & Individual Baked Blueberry Cheese Cakes
Biscuit Base:
200g sweet biscuit, Hubby bought Arnott's Marnie (I prefer Scotch fingers)
100g butter, softened.
Crush biscuits in food processor and mix in butter. Pour crumbs to the bottom of a lined lamington tray and the extra goes to 2 x 4.5" individual spring form tins. Press hard with back of spoon, chill in fridge till firm.
Cheese Cake mixture:
500g cream cheese - room temperature
4 eggs
300ml double cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Use a benchtop mixer (well, this can be done by hand, but I'm lazy), beat the cream cheese on low to medium till smooth, beat in eggs one by one, and add cream sugar, vanilla.
The mixture is enough to fill the lamington tin and the small springforms. I added blue berries to the cheese cake mixture in the individual spring forms and added plenty of nutella to the lamington tin, use a skewer to make swirl pattern.
Bake in preheated 190C oven for 30 minutes.
Keep oven door ajar to let cheese cakes cool done.
And put them in the fridge overnight, easier to cut into slices to serve.
As for the individual blueberry cheese cakes, have it for one dessert or share...
